was great, and bitter is my punishment."

When she talked thus, her eyes moist with the scanty tears shed by that
class of woman, Calyste was filled with a compassion that reduced his
fiery ardor; he adored her then as he did a Madonna. We have no more
right to require different characters to be alike in the expression of
feelings than we have to expect the same fruits from different trees.
Beatrix was at this moment undergoing an inward struggle; she hesitated
between herself and Calyste,--between the world she still hoped to
re-enter, and the young happiness offered to her; between a second and
an unpardonable love, and social rehabilitation. She began, therefore,
to listen, without even acted displeasure, to the talk of the youth's
blind passion; she allowed his soft pity to soothe her. Several times
she had been moved to tears as she listened to Calyste's promises; and
she suffered him to commiserate her for being bound to an evil genius, a
man as false as Conti. More than once she related to him the misery and
anguish she had gone through in Italy, when she first became aware that
she was not alone in Conti's heart. On this subject Camille had fully
informed Calyste and given him several lectures on it, by which he
profited.

"I," he said, "will love you only, you absolutely. I have no triumphs
of art, no applause of crowds stirred by my genius to offer you; my only
talent is to love you; my honor, my pride are in your perfections. No
other woman can have merit in my eyes; you have no odious rivalry to
fear. You are misconceived and wronged, but I know you, and for every
misconception, for every wrong, I will make you feel my comprehension
day by day."

She listened to such speeches with bowed head, allowing him to kiss
her hands, and admitting silently but gracefully that she was indeed an
angel misunderstood.

"I am too humiliated," she would say; "my past has robbed the future of
all security."

It was a glorious day for Calyste when, arriving at Les Touches at seven
in the morning, he saw from afar Beatrix at a window watching for him,
and wearing the same straw hat she had worn on the memorable day of
their first excursion. For a moment he was dazzled and giddy. These
little things of passion magnify the world itself. It may be that only
Frenchwomen possess the art of such scenic effects; they owe it to the
grace of their minds; they know how to put into sentiment as much of the
picturesque as the parti