age of expediency. The joys of the honey-moon had not
altogether conformed to the legal requirements of the social system.

During the stay of the married pair in Brittany the work of restoring
and furnishing the hotel du Guenic had been carried on by the celebrated
architect Grindot, under the superintendence of Clotilde and the Duc and
Duchesse de Grandlieu, all arrangements having been made for the return
of the young household to Paris in December, 1838. Sabine installed
herself in the rue de Bourbon with pleasure,--less for the satisfaction
of playing mistress of a great household than for that of knowing what
her family would think of her marriage.

Calyste, with easy indifference, was quite willing to let his
sister-in-law Clotilde and his mother-in-law the duchess guide him in
all matters of social life, and they were both very grateful for his
obedience. He obtained the place in society which was due to his name,
his fortune, and his alliance. The success of his wife, who was regarded
as one of the most charming women in Paris, the diversions of high
society, the duties to be fulfilled, the winter amusements of the great
city, gave a certain fresh life to the happiness of the young household
by producing a series of excitements and interludes. Sabine, considered
happy by her mother and sister, who saw in Calyste's coolness an effect
of his English education, cast aside her gloomy notions; she heard her
lot so envied by many unhappily married women that she drove her terrors
from her into the region of chimeras, until the time when her pregnancy
gave additional guarantees to this neutral sort of union, guarantees
which are usually augured well of by experienced women. In October,
1839, the young Baronne du Guenic had a son, and committed the mistake
of nursing it herself, on the theory of most women in such cases. How is
it possible, they think, not to be wholly the mother of the child of an
idolized husband?

Toward the end of the following summer, in August, 1840, Sabine had
nearly reached the period when the duty of nursing her first child would
come to an end. Calyste, during his two years' residence in Paris, had
completely thrown off that innocence of mind the charm of which had so
adorned his earliest appearance in the world of passion. He was now the
comrade of the young Duc Georges de Maufrigneuse, lately married, like
himself, to an heiress, Berthe de Cinq-Cygne; of the Vicomte Savinien
de Portenduer