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280 "Your royal highness danced just now most charmingly."

"Do you think so?" she replied, with indifference.

"Yes; the character which your royal highness assumed is in perfect harmony with your own."

Madame again turned round, and looking De Guiche full in the face with a bright and steady gaze, said.

"Why so?"

"Oh! there can be no doubt of it."

"Explain yourself."

"You represent a divinity, beautiful, disdainful, and inconstant."

"You mean Pomona, comte?"

"I allude to the goddess you represent."

Madame remained silent for a moment, with her lips compressed, and then observed:

"But, comte, you, too, are an excellent dancer."

"Nay, madame, I am only one of those who are never noticed, or who are soon forgotten if they ever happen to be noticed."

With this remark, accompanied by one of those deep sighs which affect the remotest fibers of one's being, his heart burdened with sorrow and throbbing fast, his head on fire, and his gaze wandering, he bowed breathlessly, and withdrew behind the thicket. The only reply madame condescended to make was by slightly raising her shoulders, and as her ladies of honor had discreetly retired while the conversation lasted, she recalled them by a look. The ladies were Mlle, de Tonnay-Charente and Mlle, de Montalais.

"Did you hear what the Comte de Guiche said?" the princess inquired.

"No."

"It really is very singular," she continued, in a compassionate tone, "how exile has affected poor Monsieur de Guiche's wit."

And. then, in a louder voice, fearful lest her unhappy victim might lose a syllable, she said:

"In the first place,' he danced badly, and then afterward his remarks were very silly."

She then rose, humming the air to which she was presently going to dance. De Guiche had overheard everything. The arrow had pierced his heart and wounded him mortally. Then, at the risk of interrupting the progress of the fête by his annoyance, he fled from the scene, tearing his beautiful costume of Autumn in pieces, and scattering, as he went along, the branches of vines, mulberry and