t out from Sancerre for
Paris, had intended to live in rooms of her own quite near to Lousteau;
but the proofs of devotion her lover had given her by giving up such
brilliant prospects, and yet more the perfect happiness of the first
days of their illicit union, kept her from mentioning such a parting.
The second day was to be--and indeed was--a high festival, in which such
a suggestion proposed to "her angel" would have been a discordant note.

Lousteau, on his part, anxious to make Dinah feel herself dependent
on him, kept her in a state of constant intoxication by incessant
amusement. These circumstances hindered two persons so clever as these
were from avoiding the slough into which they fell--that of a life in
common, a piece of folly of which, unfortunately, many instances may be
seen in Paris in literary circles.

And thus was the whole programme played out of a provincial amour, so
satirically described by Lousteau to Madame de la Baudraye--a fact which
neither he nor she remembered. Passion is born a deaf-mute.

This winter in Paris was to Madame de la Baudraye all that the month of
October had been at Sancerre. Etienne, to initiate "his wife" into Paris
life, varied this honeymoon by evenings at the play, where Dinah would
only go to the stage box. At first Madame de la Baudraye preserved some
remnants of her countrified modesty; she was afraid of being seen; she
hid her happiness. She would say:

"Monsieur de Clagny or Monsieur Gravier may have followed me to Paris."
She was afraid on Sancerre even in Paris.

Lousteau, who was excessively vain, educated Dinah, took her to the best
dressmakers, and pointed out to her the most fashionable women, advising
her to take them as models for imitation. And Madame de la Baudraye's
provincial appearance was soon a thing of the past. Lousteau, when his
friends met him, was congratulated on his conquest.

All through that season Etienne wrote little and got very much into
debt, though Dinah, who was proud, bought all her clothes out of her
savings, and fancied she had not been the smallest expense to her
beloved. By the end of three months Dinah was acclimatized; she had
reveled in the music at the Italian opera; she knew the pieces "on" at
all theatres, and the actors and jests of the day; she had become
inured to this life of perpetual excitement, this rapid torrent in which
everything is forgotten. She no longer craned her neck or stood with her
nose in the a