modern splendor in the ancient hall, together with the exquisite grace
of its mistress, brought up like a true Irish lady to make and pour out
tea (that mighty affair to Englishwomen), had something charming about
them. The most exquisite luxury could never have attained to the simple,
modest, noble effect produced by this sentiment of joyful hospitality.

A few moments after Calyste's departure from Les Touches, Beatrix, who
had heard him go, returned to Camille, whom she found with humid eyes
lying back on her sofa.

"What is it, Felicite?" asked the marquise.

"I am forty years old, and I love him!" said Mademoiselle des Touches,
with dreadful tones of agony in her voice, her eyes becoming hard and
brilliant. "If you knew, Beatrix, the tears I have shed over the lost
years of my youth! To be loved out of pity! to know that one owes one's
happiness only to perpetual care, to the slyness of cats, to traps laid
for innocence and all the youthful virtues--oh, it is infamous! If it
were not that one finds absolution in the magnitude of love, in the
power of happiness, in the certainty of being forever above all
other women in his memory, the first to carve on that young heart the
ineffaceable happiness of an absolute devotion, I would--yes, if he
asked it,--I would fling myself into the sea. Sometimes I find myself
wishing that he would ask it; it would then be an oblation, not a
suicide. Ah, Beatrix, by coming here you have, unconsciously, set me a
hard task. I know it will be difficult to keep him against you; but you
love Conti, you are noble and generous, you will not deceive me; on the
contrary, you will help me to retain my Calyste's love. I expected the
impression you would make upon him, but I have not committed the mistake
of seeming jealous; that would only have added fuel to the flame. On the
contrary, before you came, I described you in such glowing colors that
you hardly realize the portrait, although you are, it seems to me, more
beautiful than ever."

This vehement elegy, in which truth was mingled with deception,
completely duped the marquise. Claude Vignon had told Conti the reasons
for his departure, and Beatrix was, of course, informed of them.
She determined therefore to behave with generosity and give the cold
shoulder to Calyste; but at the same instant there came into her soul
that quiver of joy which vibrates in the heart of every woman when she
finds herself beloved. The love a woman inspires