Still Isaura was unmarried, still she had refused offers of marriage from men higher placed than himself,--still he divined no one whom she could prefer. And as he now leaned back in his coupe he muttered to himself, "Oh, if I could but get rid of that little demon Julie, I would devote myself so completely to winning Isaura's heart that I must succeed!--but how to get rid of Julie? She so adores me, and is so headstrong! She is capable of going to Isaura--showing my letters--making such a scene!" Here he checked the carriage at a cafe on the Boulevard--descended, imbibed two glasses of absinthe,--and then feeling much emboldened, remounted his coupe and directed the driver to Isaura's apartment. CHAPTER III. Yes, celebrities are of rapid growth in the salons of Paris. Far more solid than that of Rameau, far more brilliant than that of De Mauleon, was the celebrity which Isaura had now acquired. She had been unable to retain the pretty suburban villa at A------. The owner wanted to alter and enlarge it for his own residence, and she had been persuaded by Signora Venosta, who was always sighing for fresh salons to conquer, to remove (towards the close of the previous year) to apartments in the centre of the Parisian _beau monde_. Without formally professing to receive, on one evening in the week her salon was open to those who had eagerly sought her acquaintance--comprising many stars in the world of fashion, as well as those in the world of art and letters. And as she had now wholly abandoned the idea of the profession for which her voice had been cultivated, she no longer shrank from the exercise of her surpassing gift of song for the delight of private friends. Her physician had withdrawn the interdict on such exercise. His skill, aided by the rich vitality of her constitution, had triumphed over all tendencies to the malady for which he had been consulted. To hear Isaura Cicogna sing in her own house was a privilege sought and prized by many who never read a word of her literary compositions. A good critic of a book is rare; but good judges of a voice are numberless. Adding this attraction of song to her youth, her beauty, her frank powers of converse--an innocent sweetness of manner free from all conventional affectation--and to the fresh novelty of a genius which inspired the young with enthusiast and beguiled the old to indulgence, it was no wonder that Isaura became a celebrity at Paris. Perhaps it was a wonder that her head was not turned by the adulation that surrounded her. But I believe, be it said with diffidence, that a woman of mind so superior that the mind never pretends to efface the heart, is less intoxicated with flattery than a man equally exposed to it.