"Not a syllable! As before, she passed me by.
"Ah, mon Dieu! I cannot tell you how I reached my couch.
"But my zeal survived even this. I was stricken, but indomitable. I said, 'Behold a saint worth winning!' I said 'Brace up, and demonstrate that you are worthy of her!'
"My friend, every day for a month I thumbed that exhausting dictionary, and a Spanish Grammar, that I might send to her a sonnet every night. For thirty days on end I wrestled with synonyms and inversions in a foreign tongue, to create for her a nightly proof of my genius and my love.
"And I waited for an answer vainly.
"Long after despair had mastered me, I was with a good-for-nothing painter of my acquaintance. He said, 'I have a new flame—delicious. Have you heard of the Spanish dancer up at the Little Casino?'
"By a superhuman effort I controlled myself. 'Your suit prospers?'
"'It is going strong. And only a week since I first dropped in there and saw her!'
"'You are a man of action! But since when have you talked Spanish?'
"'Oh, that isn't necessary,' he laughed; 'she is Spanish only on the stage. Between ourselves, her name is really Marie Durand—she has never been out of France in her life.'