My dear little Zozé: I am sure I don't know what I could have been thinking of at the dance last night when I told you we would lunch together in our little nest. I pledged myself to the Mathays a week ago. Thank Heaven, I remembered it in time. We shall make up for this. Forgive my carelessness; till to-day at 4. In haste, all the kisses of your old G. Quietly she folded the note and laid it on the wash-stand. Then she selected two small pearl-headed pins and carefully pinned them on her broad-winged cravat. She found it growing too hard for her to repress her feelings, however, and there was a catch in her voice as she murmured: "Leave these things, Anna! Bring me my pink negligé...." "Madame, then, is not going out?" the maid protested, in feigned surprise. Mme. Chambannes threw her corsage on a chair and feverishly began to unfasten her skirt. "No! I am not going out." "Will Madame lunch here? Shall I call the cook?" "Yes.... No...." Zozé stammered out. "Tell her to prepare lunch for me ... whatever she has...." "Very well, Madame." A moment later she returned holding on her arm a long soft gown with pink ribbons. Mme. Chambannes slipped into it; while she fastened the ribbons she ordered dryly: "Go now!" Anna disappeared. Mme. Chambannes dropped into a little cretonne-covered armchair. * * * * * They were not to lunch together. It was certain, definite, irrevocable. Between her and that Mathay woman Gerald had not even hesitated. Yet he must have foreseen how it would hurt her, and what poignant disappointment he would cause her by breaking his promise at the last moment. Wretch! She conjured up a picture of him, sitting at the dining table beside the countess, that small fair-haired woman with her turned-up nose, her childish, impudent, saucy face. He was making himself pleasant, prattling pretty nonsense, fashioning his glances to hers and using his big eyes to offer himself. The lunch was perhaps ending, they were going into the hall to drink their coffee! Who knew? Mathay might be going out, leaving them alone, like the great fool of a husband he was! Well, then, what would happen? Did they not all know that young giddy countess? She had no name for being a stronghold, the Capitol!... Oh! what infamy! what an abject situation! Mme. Chambannes would have liked to snatch out her own heart and hurl it through the window, far, far away. Her nails caught at her gown where it was beating against the armor of her corset. Her mind dwelt on reprisals, as it did whenever she saw Gerald's treason as an accomplished fact.