Though the daily unacknowledged offering of flowers continued, none had been worn since the episode of the Malmaisons. Not that any importance was to be attributed either to the French youth's graceful courtesy in giving flowers, or to the woman of mystery's unwarranted hints of gossip about it. Mrs. Allonby seldom wore flowers at table now, unless they were obviously wild; that was all. Nor had the Italian lessons M. Isidore had been giving her stopped--he gave conversational lessons in that language to Miss Boundrish, to Mr. Welbourne, and other male visitors as well. There was nothing tedious or fatiguing in the Italian lessons given to Mrs. Allonby. They always began with _Ollendorffian_ questions and answers in slow and indifferent Italian, as thus: "Do you like cheese? I do not like cheese, but the sister-in-law of the Italian organ-grinder likes cheese," and ended in light and gay discussions in quick, fluent French upon subjects of various interest, art, literature, the only drastic and effectual remedy for blighted hopes, the best place to pop and redeem jewels in, the last big haul at Monte Carlo, and the eminent personalities to be seen playing there--topics upon which this light-hearted youth was very well informed. "Ah, Madame!" he sighed on this sunny afternoon, his beautiful dark eyes uplifted to her sympathetic face, and his hand fervidly pressing the upper part of his waistcoat; "if I might but reveal to you the anguish that is consuming me!" Bees were drowsily humming in masses of grey-blue rosemary bloom, so drowsily that they accentuated the deep mountain silence, upon which the minor tones of the lovelorn youth's voice fell plaintive and clear. Ermengarde, regarding him with the unconsciously sweet expression that had won her many a heart, was replying, "Well, why not? Perhaps the trouble is not so great as it seems," when she became sympathetically aware, without looking up, through a sudden nervous tremor in her young friend's frame, of another presence on the path, and turned simultaneously with him to see the statuesque figure and cold, rigid face of Mlle. Bontemps. She had apparently sprung up unobserved from the depths of the earth, as everybody did on that ridge, and stood waiting, her massively coiled hair shining uncovered in the fading sun, for an opportunity to speak. The luckless Isidore was on his feet with a bound, while Ermengarde started with a smothered exclamation, and recovered with a little embarrassed laugh. "How you startled me, Mademoiselle!" she said. "One hears nothing on this soft sand."