They were all congregated for a while in one great flower-house, and Gertrude, finding herself near her sister, asked her how she liked it all.
'Oh! it is very beautiful,' said Katie, 'only--' 'Only what, dear ?' 'Would you let me come with you a little while! Look here'-- and she crept softly around to the other side of her sister, sidling with little steps away from the Frenchman, at whom, however, she kept furtively looking, as though she feared that he would detect her in the act.

'Look here, Gertrude,' she said, twitching her sister's arm; 'that gentleman there--you see him, don't you?
he's a Frenchman, and I don't know how to get away from him.' 'How to get away from him ?' said Gertrude.

'That's M.Delabarbe de l'Empereur, a great friend of Mrs.Val's, and a very quiet sort of man, I believe; he won't eat you.' 'No, he won't eat me, I know; but I can't look at anything, because he will walk so close to me! Mayn't I come with you ?' Gertrude told her she might, and so Katie made good her escape, hiding herself from her enemy as well as she could behind her sister's petticoats.

He, poor man, was perhaps as rejoiced at the arrangement as Katie herself; at any rate he made no attempt to regain his prey, but went on by himself, looking as placidly stern as ever, till he was absorbed by Mrs.Val's more immediate party, and then he devoted himself to her, while M.Jaquetanape settled with Clementina the properest arrangement for the waltzes of the evening.
Katie was beginning to be tranquilly happy, and was listening to the enthusiasm of Ugolina Neverbend, who declared that flowers were the female poet's fitting food--it may be doubted whether she had ever tried it--when her heart leaped within her on hearing a sharp, clear, well-known voice, almost close behind her.

It was Charley Tudor.