"Ma foi!" said La Perouse. "What airs! Good champagne, too. Come, taste." "Mademoiselle prefers water," I put in; and then, unwisely: "She is not accustomed to wine." La Perouse stared at me, champagne-glass in hand, and then broke out laughing. She was about to say something, but checked herself, and turned to the chicken on her plate. But La Perouse, as the champagne worked in her wits, returned to the subject of Eloise's abstinence. In that dull brain was moving a resentment which the vulgar mind had not the power to repress. "What! not drink champagne?" said the fool for the twentieth time. "Ah, well! It was different in the days of Changarnier. How is he, by the way, the brave Changarnier?" I rose to my feet; and Eloise, as if moved by the same impulse, rose also. "Mademoiselle," said I, as I offered Eloise my arm, "does not drink champagne. It is a matter of taste with her. Did she do so, however, I am very well assured that the evil spirit in it would never prompt her to talk and act like a fool!" There was dead silence, as, with Eloise on my arm, I walked towards the trees. Then I heard the shrill laughter of the women; but I did not heed, for Eloise was weeping. "Come," I said; "forget them." "It is not they," replied Eloise. "I do not care about _them_." I knew quite well what she meant. It was the Past. Do not for a moment confuse that word "past" with conscience. Whatever sin might have been committed by the world against Eloise Feliciani, she, at heart, was sinless. No; it was just the Past, a blur of miasma from Paris, a breath of winter. "Come," I said; "forget it! All that is a bad dream that you have dreamt; all those people, those women, those men, are not real: they are things in a nightmare; they have no souls, and when they die they go nowhere--they are just ugly pictures that God wipes off a slate. This is the real thing: these trees, these birds; and they are yours for ever. I give you them; they are the best gift that money can buy." I wiped her eyes with my handkerchief. She smiled through her tears; and we pursued our way to the Pavilion, followed by the rustle of the wind in the leaves, and the song of the wood-doves--lazy, languorous, soothing--filled with the warmth and the softness of summer. When I returned to Paris that night I sought for my guardian, and found him in the smoking-room. Angry though I was with the trick he had played me, his manner was so bland and kind that I was at a loss how to begin. He it was, indeed, who began by complimenting the beauty of Eloise, her grace and her modesty. In fact, he had so much to say for her that I could not get in a word.