"'Why, I did.'
"'You? What do you mean? You bring me to this hotel, to conceal me, and you send word to my father!'
"'Why, mademoiselle, it was you yourself who said to me: "You will carry me off, then you will write to my father, and he'll have to consent to our marriage."—I have followed your instructions; I have sent a letter to your papa by a messenger, telling him that I have carried you off and that we are here.'
"'Oh! is it possible that anybody can be such a stupid fool! Why, monsieur, the time to write to the parents is after a few days have passed; when the elopement has made a great sensation, and they have hunted everywhere for the girl, and when—when—things have happened that—— Oh! how stupid you are, monsieur! Mon Dieu!'
"Gabriel was at his wits' end, and I was choking with rage. At that moment, I heard my father's voice in the street. He was just entering the house, with a friend of his, and I heard him say:
"'It's a boy and girl's joke, but I don't like it.'
"The thought of being found there by my father, and of the bundle I had brought, together with Gabriel's dazed look, drove me into a perfect frenzy of rage; and in my longing to be revenged, to vent my spleen upon someone, I seized my lover's cane, and, without taking time to reflect, beat him soundly over the shoulders before he knew what I was doing. Then I opened the window—we were only on the entresol—and jumped without a moment's hesitation. I landed in the street, uninjured, hurried home, and succeeded in creeping up to my room without being seen. I quickly scrambled into bed, so that when my father returned he concluded that the letter he had received was simply a hoax, and never mentioned it. As for little Gabriel, I never saw him again.
"That, my friend, is the story of my first love, if one may fairly give that name to the impulsive fancy of a mere girl, which makes her think that she loves the first fair-haired stripling who sighs when he looks at her.
"A few months after this adventure, another young man paid court to me; but he was not timid, not he! he knew how to speak out, and was not at all embarrassed about declaring his affection; he expressed himself too eloquently, perhaps, for he turned my head with fine phrases which I thought superb at the time, but which would seem quite devoid of sense now. After declaring his passion to me, he asked my father for my hand, and was formally refused. He had not a sou, and I have learned since that he was a very bad character. But at that time I looked upon my father as a tyrant, and when Anatole proposed an elopement, to be followed by a marriage, it seemed to me a perfectly natural proposal.
"However, I hesitated. The memory of my escapade with Gabriel had cooled my ardor somewhat on the subject of elopements, and at first I made some objections. Anatole thereupon drew from under his waistcoat a little dagger with a gleaming blade, swearing that he would kill himself before my eyes if I did not consent to be abducted. A man who proposes to kill himself for love of you! That is magnificent, and not to be resisted. I consented.