"All! Nay--is it not enough to step at once into fame--to have been advocated by Béranger--to have the poem crowned in the Theatre of the Académie Française?"
She stood silent, with drooping head and listless hands, all disappointment and despondency. Presently she looked up.
"Where did you learn this?" she asked.
I handed her the journal.
"Come in, fellow-student," said she, and held the door wide for me to enter.
For the second time I found myself in her little salon, and found everything in the self-same order.
"Well," I said, "are you not happy?"
She shook her head.
"Success is not happiness," she replied, smiling mournfully. "That Béranger should have advocated my poem is an honor beyond price; but--but I need more than this to make me happy."
And her eyes wandered, with a strange, yearning look, to the sword over the chimney-piece.