"Reflecting on this feeling I stood once at midnight in a side entrance of the Grand Opera, waiting wearily for a coach, for it rained hard. But no coach came, or rather coaches only which belonged to other people, who got in gaily enough and departed, until little by little I was left alone.
"'Well, then, you must ride with me!' said a lady who, closely wrapped in a black mantilla, had also stood waiting by me for some time, and who was now about to enter a carriage. The voice thrilled through my heart; the well-known side-glance exerted once more its charm; and I seemed to be in a dream, when I found myself in a softly-padded warm carriage by Mademoiselle Laurence. We spoke no word to one another, perhaps we could not have understood if we had spoken, since that vehicle rattled with a fearful droning noise through the streets of Paris for a long time, till it at last stopped before a vast gateway.
"Servants in brilliant livery lighted us up the steps through a suite of apartments. A lady's maid who with sleepy face approached us, stammered with many excuses that the red room was the only one with a fire lighted. As she gave the maid a sign to leave us, Laurence said laughing, 'Chance or luck has brought you far indeed to-day; my bedroom is the only one which is warmed'———
