towards me. Why had I not done so before?
I feared the result. To have popped the
question and have met with a refusal, would
have crushed my hopes for ever. No appeal
could have been made from such a decision.
The barrier to happiness would have been
shut irrevocably. As long as I was silent,
the course was still open, and this bare
chance seemed to me at times a state of paradise.
I could endure it better than risk the
future at a single throw. Like the gambler
who holds the die for an indefinite time in his
trembling hand, knowing that when it
descends his fortune will be decided for ever,
I stood and hesitated. However, the morning
for action came, and the occasion seemed
a legitimate one. I purchased a trifle—a
gold cross—and procured an elegant bouquet,
the usual present. I had determined that
the manner in which Julie should receive my
bijou should be the test how far I might hope,
or how far I ought to fear.

Early the next morning, I was hastening
across the street. It was not eight o'clock.
On mounting the staircase, I met Antoine
descending, and whistling incautiously the
Marseillaise.

"Bon jour, mon ami," he said gaily, as we
passed each other.

I scarcely replied to his salute. My head
was too much pre-occupied with the task I
had set myself; and besides, I fear, a feeling
of jealousy arose that even flashed across me
at the moment, for I remember that I trembled,
and my heart sank suddenly within me.
However, on I rushed. I entered the room.
Julie was alone. Quel bonheur! I went up
to her to offer my tribute of—what? Would
that I could have called it friendship. She
held in her hand a bouquet of white roses.
Yes, every one was white as the untrodden
snow. Not a stain, not a speck, not a defect
of any kind marred their perfect beauty. She
was eyeing them with evident pleasure, and
when she looked up at me as I advanced
into the room, the brilliant glance she gave
me turned my blood as it were into a stream
of burning lava. My cheeks glowed with
fire.

"Look!" she said, it seemed with an air of
triumph, "what Antoine has brought"

"'Sdeath!" I cried, dashing my nosegay on
the floor, and trampling on it. "Be it so;
take his gifts, if they be then so preferable!"
and with these words rushed out of the room,
descended the staircase, and left the house.

I wandered along the banks of the canal.
I ought to have been at work, but thoughts
of work had entirely abandoned me. Midday
found me in a state of misery. By this
time reason had taken the place of passion. I
began to reflect that I had acted, under any
circumstances, in a most unjustifiable, a most
Quixotic manner; that I had exhibited myself
to Julie in a character that, whatever might
have been my former hopes, must now extinguish
them for ever. If she regarded my
conduct as an expression of attachment, what
could she think of a person who put such
small restraint upon himself as to imitate
rather the tricks and antics of a monkey than
the reasonable behaviour of a human being! I
felt, too, that I had perhaps allowed my feelings
to carry me beyond what the actual
circumstances of the case merited. It might be,
after all, that the bouquet of Antoine was
only the expression of a friendly sentiment,
and, that being the case, how absurd,
how worse than absurd, must I appear henceforth
to the whole Gigot family. I had
been my own undoer. It was late in
the afternoon ere my senses really assumed
their proper place. Then I tried to
convince myself that Julie would not think
my conduct so absurd as I did myself,—in
fact, that I had made an exaggeration of it
in a moment of perverted feeling; and that
an explanation and an apology would set ail
to rights. I remembered, too, the touchstone
I carried in my pocket. In the morning it
was to have been the test of her regard for
me; could I not now make it a talisman to
regain my peace with her in the evening;
the thought came across me like a flash of
sunshine. My hopes sprung up fresh again
I resolved, therefore, to return and spend
the rest of the day at M. Gigot's as
though nothing had happened. Circumstances
served to conspire in my favour. No
one was in the room at the time of my
trampling the flowers under foot, and I felt assured
that if Julie loved, she would conceal the heroic
exploit from her parents. There was to be a
soirée, too, given in honour of Julie's birthday;
I could, therefore, more easily obtain an
opportunity of apologising and explaining.
I followed, therefore, the impulse of the
moment, and regained the Rue Ménilmontant,
just as the moon was breaking through the
clouds to the east of Belleville.

As I mounted the stairs to my apartment,
the concierge called me back to put a letter
into my hand. I glanced at it. It was from
the père Gigot. In a moment all my bright
anticipations of peace fled, and my worst
fears came back upon me like a flood. I
stood trembling and hesitating before
venturing to ascend to my room or open the
letter. At length I did both. It was as I
expected. The note referred to my conduct
that morning. The style was cold, the writing
irregular and hurried, as if penned by a hand
shaken by passion or excitement. It forbade
me the house, until a satisfactory explanation
had been entered into. There would perhaps
have been no great difficulty in this, had I
been calm. An explanation was what I had
intended to give, backed by a sincere apology.
But no one is always in his right senses, and
mine had been wofully put to flight that day.
The character too of Julie did not derive any
new lustre in my eyes from what I could not
help regarding as the treachery she had been
guilty of. I took this letter to be an unequivocal