It was true that she accepted from me more devotion, more worship, more time, more outward and visible homage than from any other.
Was I not her _Cavaliere servente ?_ Did she not accept my bouquets?
Did she not say the other day, when I gave her that volume of Tennyson, that she loved all that was English for my sake?
Surely, I was worse than ungrateful, when, having so much, I was still dissatisfied! Why was I not the happiest fellow in Paris?
Why .....
My meditations were here interrupted by a sudden flash of very vivid lightning, followed by a low muttering of distant thunder.

I paused, and looked round.

The sky was darker than ever, and though the air was singularly stagnant, I could hear among the uppermost leaves of the tall trees that stealthy rustling that generally precedes a storm.
Unfortunately for myself, I had not felt disposed to go home at once on leaving the theatre; but, being restless alike in mind and body, had struck down through the Place Vendome and up the Rue de Rivoli, intending to come home by a circuitous route.

At this precise moment I found myself in the middle of the Place de la Concorde, with Cleopatra's needle towering above my head, the lamps in the Champs Elysees twinkling in long chains of light through the blank darkness before me, and no vehicle anywhere in sight.

To be caught in a heavy shower, was not, certainly, an agreeable prospect for one who had just emerged from the opera in the thinnest of boots and the lightest of folding hats, with neither umbrella nor paletot of proof; so, having given a hasty glance in every direction from which a cab might be expected, I took valiantly to my heels, and made straight for the Madeleine.
Long before I had accomplished half the distance, however, another flash announced the quick coming of the tempest, and the first premonitory drops began to plash down heavily upon the pavement.