“It reminds me of a convent or a prison, Madame,” he answered; “but it is doubtless a fair place for meditation.” They were walking slowly down the gravel path, towards the poplar trees. Luc looked back and saw that the windows of the house were all shuttered, and that there was no sign of life. “Is this your sister’s hotel, Countess?” he asked. “No,” she answered; “mine. I told you that I came to Paris to attend the Queen; but I have left that employment. I lead a life of leisure. I am not so often at the Court.” “Forgive me,” he said, for he felt as if he had asked her for an explanation; “but I thought you wrote to me from the Hôtel Dubussy----” “I did,” she interrupted. “Madame Dubussy is my sister; but I no longer live there.” Luc looked at her and smiled. “Do you know that I passed her house the other night and wondered if you were within? There was a great festival. Some one told me it was the Hôtel Dubussy, but when I saw this house I thought perhaps I had been mistaken.” Carola drew the slim folds of the red “capuchin” over her stiff skirts. “You are now in my house, a little outside the Porte St. Antoine. It is rather a lonely part of Paris,” she said. “I have not been to my sister’s house for some weeks.” Luc did not answer. He liked her measured speech; she was careful with words. His rare dealings with women had taught him that it was an unusual gift in them. Even his mother at times threw words about in a cloud regardless of their meaning, almost of their sense, and he had known little Clémence de Séguy deal in tangled periods that left her panting and worsted by her own language. But Carola used the foreign tongue that was so familiar to her with cautious care; her almost hesitating choice of sentences gave her a marvellous air of sincerity. “Perhaps,” she continued, “you are wondering why I live here. You used to call me ‘Mademoiselle’ in Bohemia, but I am a widow.” This fact, that explained both her wealth and her freedom, gave him that shock always given by a discovery about some one of whom we have known nothing, but imagined much. “I should have realized that, I think,” he said simply; “but you seemed to me very young, Madame.” They had now reached the bench under the wallflowers. Carola seated herself. “I am thirty,” she said; “I looked the same at twenty. The man I was with in Bohemia was my husband’s brother. Madame Dubussy is his sister. Now tell me about yourself. Why did you come to Paris?” Luc smiled; his whole exquisite face changed and lit. There was nothing in his heart that he could explain to a woman; the idea of it made him smile. “I intend to enter politics, as you surmised,” he answered. “I am a poor man, Madame, and have had to begin my career afresh.” “Did they want you to remain in Aix?” she asked. “My family? Yes.” “But you have a great ambition, Monsieur.” He was still smiling. “How do you know so much about me?” he asked.