The fare was excellent, the wine capital, the dining-room well lighted, warm, and comfortable, and all were in high spirits; congratulating each other upon having happily reached the end of their long journey at last, and drinking to their own future success in this great city of Paris.

They indulged in the flattering hope of producing a sensation here as well as at Poitiers, and even dared to dream of being commanded to appear before the court, and of being rewarded royally for their exertions to please.

Only de Sigognac was silent and preoccupied, and Isabelle, whose thoughts were all of him, cast anxious glances at him, and wished that she could charm away his melancholy.

He was seated at the other end of the table, and still puzzling over the face that he had seen in the kitchen, but he soon looked towards her, and caught her lovely eyes fixed upon him, with such an adorable expression of chaste love and angelic tenderness in their shadowy depths, that all thoughts save of her were at once banished from his mind.

The warmth of the room had flushed her cheeks a little, her eyes shone like stars, and she looked wonderfully beautiful; the young Duke of Vallombreuse would have been more madly enamoured of her than ever if he could have seen her then.