We know how little she dreamed that the celebrity which she hailed as an approach to him was daily making her more remote. The sweet labours she undertook for that celebrity continued to be sweetened yet more by secret associations with the absent one. How many of the passages most admired could never have been written had he been never known! And she blessed those labours the more that they upheld her from the absolute feebleness of sickened reverie, beguiled her from the gnawing torture of unsatisfied conjecture. She did comply with Madame de Grantmesnil's command--did pass from the dusty beaten road of life into green fields and along flowery river-banks, and did enjoy that ideal by- world. But still the one image which reigned over her human heart moved beside her in the gardens of fairyland. CHAPTER IV. Isaura was seated in her pretty salon, with the Venosta, M. Savarin, the Morleys, and the financier Louvier, when Rameau was announced. "Ha!" cried Savarin, "we were just discussing a matter which nearly concerns you, _cher poete_. I have not seen you since the announcement that Pierre Firmin is no other than Victor de Mauleon. _Ma foi_, that worthy seems likely to be as dangerous with his pen as he was once with his sword. The article in which he revealed himself makes a sharp lunge on the Government. 'Take care of yourself. When hawks and nightingales fly together the hawk may escape, and the nightingale complain of the barbarity of kings, in a cage: 'flebiliter gemens infelix avis.''" "He is not fit to conduct a journal," replied Rameau, magniloquently, "who will not brave a danger for his body in defence of the right to infinity for his thought." "Bravo!" said Mrs. Morley, clapping her pretty hands. "That speech reminds me of home. The French are very much like the Americans in their style of oratory." "So," said Louvier, "my old friend the Vicomte has come out as a writer, a politician, a philosopher; I feel hurt that he kept this secret from me despite our intimacy. I suppose you knew it from the first, M. Rameau?" "No, I was as much taken by surprise as the rest of the world. You have long known M. de Mauleon?" "Yes, I may say we began life together--that is, much at the same time." "What is he like in appearance?" asked Mrs. Morley. "The ladies thought him very handsome when he was young," replied Louvier. "He is still a fine-looking man, about my height." "I should like to know him!" cried Mrs. Morley, "if only to tease that husband of mine. He refuses me the dearest of woman's rights.--I can't make him jealous." "You may have the opportunity of knowing this _ci-devant_ Lovelace very soon," said Rameau, "for he has begged me to present him to Mademoiselle Cicogna, and I will ask her permission to do so, on Thursday evening when she receives."