The instant I was alone, dignity and self-control fell from me like a mantle, and flinging myself into a chair, I stared blindly out through the open window. The garden was a formal one in the Italian style, not large, but elegantly planned, and sloping gently to the margin of the river, which seemed here both broad and deep. Beyond it was a tangle of trees and shrubbery, and farther away, upon the side of a little hill, were the white houses of a village, their windows bright with the rays of the setting sun. But it was at none of these things I looked--though I see them now as plainly as if they were here before me--for my eyes were turned inward at the tumult in my own bosom, and my brain was wondering numbly why it was that my life, heretofore so bright, had turned suddenly so gray; that the green valleys of the future had changed to sandy, barren wastes; that the very savor of living was as dust in my throat. I had glanced for an instant into a pair of startled eyes, and that instant had struck the boyish carelessness from my heart as with a blow. But at last I shook the feeling off--or perhaps it was only the warm blood of youth asserting itself--and when the man came with the candles I could proceed with my toilet with almost, if not quite, my old calmness. When it was finished I turned to the glass and contemplated the reflection there. Fresh the face undoubtedly was, and if not handsome, at least not grotesque; but with the memory of my host before me I thought it absurdly boyish. The figure, while erect enough, had not that easy poise I had marked in him, nor did the garments in which I had arrayed myself fall into those natural and graceful lines which somehow stamp the finished gentleman. As I stared gloomily at myself I recalled the careless words of Sergeant Dubosq. Yes, he was right; he had hit the mark--I was too young, too pink and white, too much of the country. Comforting myself as well as I could with the thought that time would remedy these defects, I turned away, opened the door and went down the stair. Beyond the vestibule was the saloon, a circular marble room, extremely elegant and well-furnished, and still beyond this the drawing-room, with four large paintings of the French victories of 1744 upon the walls. There was no one in either room, and I was examining the paintings, which no doubt pictured events in which the father of my host had taken part, and which appeared to me of splendid execution, when I heard the rustling of skirts behind me. I turned to perceive Mlle. de Chambray upon the threshold, and the fear of her ridicule was swept away in the burst of happiness at seeing her again. “Oh, is it you, M. de Tavernay?” she said, hesitating and coloring divinely. “Yes, it is I, mademoiselle,” I answered, trembling at this first time that she had ever addressed me. “And alone?” she added, with a quick glance about the room. “It is strange that madame is not down.”