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GABRIELLE DE BERGERAC

"Mon Dieu, my tastes are very simple. And then—happiness, cela ne se raisonne pas. You don't find it when you go in quest of it. It's like fortune; it comes to you in your sleep."

"I imagine," said Mlle. de Bergerac, "that I was never happy."

"That's a sad story," said Coquelin.

The young girl began to laugh. "And never unhappy."

"Dear me, that's still worse. Never fear, it will come."

"What will come?"

"That which is both bliss and misery at once."

Mlle. de Bergerac hesitated a moment. "And what is this strange thing?" she asked.

On his side Coquelin was silent. "When it comes to you," he said, at last, "you'll tell me what you call it."

About a week after this, at breakfast, in pursuance of an urgent request of mine, Coquelin proposed to my father to allow him to take me to visit the ruins of an ancient feudal castle