Fougas, who was going to start for Dantzic next day, took a sheet of paper embossed with a great eagle, and set to work to excuse himself politely.

He feared--the delicate and chivalrous soul!--that an evening of conversation and enjoyment in the society of the loveliest women of Germany might be a sort of moral infidelity to the recollection of Clementine.

He accordingly hunted up an eligible formula of address, and wrote: "Too indulgent Beauty, I----" The muse dictated nothing more.

He was not in the mood for writing.

He felt rather more in the mood for supper.