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She was silent for a moment. “Ah!” she said, and sighed; “you think so?”

“Once, then–?” The Duc de Puysange seated himself beside his wife, and took her hand.

“I–it was nothing.” Her lashes fell, and dull color flushed through her countenance.

“Between friends,” the Duke suggested, “there should be no reservations.”

“But it is such a pitiably inartistic little history!” the Duchess protested. “Eh bien, if you must have it! For I was a girl once,–an innocent girl, as given as are most girls to long reveries and bright, callow day-dreams. And there was a man–“

“There always is,” said the Duke, darkly.

“Why, he never even knew, mon ami!” cried his wife, and laughed, and clapped her hands. “He was much older than I; there were stories about him–oh, a great many stories,–and one hears even in a convent–” She paused with a reminiscent smile. “And I used to wonder shyly what this very fearful reprobate might be like. I thought of him with de Lauzun, and Dom Juan, and with the Duc de Grammont, and all those other scented, shimmering, magnificent libertines over whom les ingénues–wonder; only, I thought of him, more often than of the others, I made little prayers for him to the Virgin. And I procured a tiny miniature of him. And, when I came out of the convent, I met him at my father’s house. [Footnote: She was of the Aigullon family, and sister to d’Agenois, the first and very politic lover of Madame de la Tournelle, afterward mistress to Louis Quinze under the title of Duchesse de Ch�teauroux. The later relations between the d’Aigullons and Madame du Barry are well-known.] And that was all.”

“All?” The Duc de Puysange had raised his swart eyebrows, and he slightly smiled.

“All,” she re-echoed, firmly. “Oh, I assure you he was still too youthful to have any time to devote to young girls. He was courteous–no more. But I kept the picture,–ah, girls are so foolish, Gaston!” The Duchess, with a light laugh, drew upward the thin chain about her neck. At its end was a little heart-shaped locket of dull gold, with a diamond sunk deep in each side. She regarded the locket with a quaint sadness. “It is a long while since I have seen that miniature, for it has been sealed in here,” said she, “ever since–since some one gave me the locket”

Now the Duc de Puysange took this trinket, still tepid and perfumed from contact with her flesh. He turned it awkwardly in his hand, his eyes flashing volumes of wonderment and inquiry. Yet he did not appear jealous, nor excessively unhappy. “And never,” he demanded, some vital emotion catching at his voice–“never since then–?”

“I never, of course, approved of him,” she answered; and at this point de Puysange noted–so near as he could remember for the first time in his existence,–the curve of her trailing lashes. Why but his wife had lovely eyelashes, lashes so unusual that he drew nearer to observe them more at his ease. “Still,–I hardly know how to tell you–still, without him the world was more quiet, less colorful; it held, appreciably, less to catch the eye and ear. Eh, he had an air, Gaston; he was never an admirable man, but, somehow, he was invariably the centre of the picture.”

“And you have always–always you have cared for him?” said the Duke, drawing nearer and yet more near to her.

“Other men,” she murmured, “seem futile and of minor importance, after him.” The lashes lifted. They fell, promptly. “So, I have always kept the heart, mon ami. And, yes, I have always loved him, I suppose.”

The chain had moved and quivered in his hand. Was it man or woman who trembled? wondered the Duc de Puysange. For a moment he stood immovable, every nerve in his body tense. Surely, it was she who trembled? It seemed to him that this woman, whose cold perfection had galled him so long, now stood with downcast eyes, and blushed and trembled, too, like any rustic maiden come shamefaced to her first tryst.