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114 say this is over-sensitiveness; weakness though it be, it is very universal.

Francesca would have rejoiced only to see a face she had ever seen before,—when, as if to show the folly of wishes, one appeared. It was the Chevalier de Joinville, the cavalier who accompanied D'Argenteuil the night when forcible possession was taken of Bournonville's house. He remained for some minutes opposite the young Italian, with that fixed yet impertinent gaze which it is equally impossible to escape or to endure. Her evident annoyance, however, appeared to produce no other effect upon him than a desire to increase it by addressing her:

"I am happy to see," said he, approaching her, "that the bloom of la signora is not affected by her late vigil."

Now, if there be one thing in the world more provokingly insolent than another, it is a personal compliment from a stranger, whom you consider to have not even the right of speaking to you. Francesca was too new to society to possess the art of seeming neither to hear, see, nor understand, excepting what it is your own good pleasure so to do; she therefore replied by a slight bend and a deepened blush.

"Our English cavalier has left Paris on a