beating that ambitious heart of the huntress prisoned in its jewels and white satin.

What would the King do? Would he resent or accept the challenge? Gentlemen and ladies, nobles and bourgeois alike, drew a deep breath. Ah! the King had picked up the handkerchief--a second’s pause, the pause in which a nation’s destiny may be decided--and then the King smilingly threw the handkerchief back, fair and true, at the audacious dancer. A pent-up cry arose, hands were clapped. “The King has thrown the handkerchief, the King has thrown the handkerchief,” was the ringing sentence on the lips of all. Madame caught the royal gift and melted into an enchanting reverence. One alluring side-glance under demure eyelashes, a glance of challenge and of submission, and she had taken André’s arm and glided swiftly back to the dais.

“The King has thrown the handkerchief” still rang round the crowded room. But where was the dancer? She was gone--yes, actually gone without waiting to follow up her victory. And of the expectant, excited throng André alone recognised how unerring was her tact. The huntress had accomplished her object. Henceforward it would not be she who must hunt, for defiance to royal hunters can be more triumphant than obedience.

André went over to Madame des Forges and St. Benôit. “You have lost again,” he said, “and you will confess it now.”

“It is infamous,” replied the Comtesse, with fierce indignation. “Infamous! But that grisette has not won yet; the road from the Hôtel-de-Ville to Versailles is long and difficult!”

“Ah, no,” André answered; “not when you can travel in a royal carriage. You will see what you will see when the campaign is over. The bourgeoise before long will have the heel of her slipper on all our necks.”

“And you believe,” said the Comtesse, “that we will permit her to be forced on us. You are as mad as she is.”

She promptly took St. Benôit’s arm to mark her anger at the part André had played. But he only shrugged his shoulders in infinite amusement. A week ago, true enough, he had scorned to lend himself to such tactics, but to-night he was insensible to the reproach that his noble blood should have felt. For he, too, was under the spell of fate and of a witchery far more potent than the drug of any magician. It was not in mortal man to resist the sorcery of that fair huntress who played on human and royal passion as a musician on a stringed instrument. But there was more than mere passion in 

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