Strange as it seemed to the Chevalier, Paris was unchanged.
But what warmed the Chevalier's heart, even as the water warmed his body, was the thought of that adorable mystery, that tantalizing, haunting mystery, the woman unknown.

This very room was made precious by the fact that its air had once embraced her with a familiarity such as he had never dared assume.

What a night that had been! She had come, masked; she had dined; at his protestations of love she had laughed, as one laughs who hears a droll story; and in the attempt to put his arm around her waist, the cold light flashing from her half-hidden eyes had stilled and abashed him.

Why did she hold him, yet repel?
What was her object?
Was she some princess who had been hidden away during her girlhood, to appear only when the bud opened into womanhood, rich, glorious, and warm?
Like a sunbeam, like a shadow, she flitted through the corridors and galleries of the Louvre and the Palais Royal, and whenever he had sought to point her out to some one, to discover her name, lo, she was gone! Tormenting mystery! Ah, that soft lisp of hers, those enchanting caprices, those amazing extravagances of fancy, that wit which possessed the sparkle of white chambertin! He would never forget that summer night when, dressed as a boy, she had gone with him swashbuckling along the quays.

And for all these meetings, for all her supplicating or imperious notes, what had been his reward?
To kiss her hand when she came, to kiss her hand when she went, and all the while her lips burned like a cardinal poppy and her eyes lured like those phantom lakes of the desert.