nsieur know."

"Monsieur does not dine at home, Madame la baronne."

Who knows what torture there is for a young woman of twenty-three in
finding herself alone in the great dining-room of an old mansion, served
by silent servants, under circumstances like these?

"Order the carriage," she said suddenly; "I shall go to the Opera."

She dressed superbly; she wanted to exhibit herself alone and smiling
like a happy woman. In the midst of her remorse for the addition she had
made to Madame de Rochefide's letter she had resolved to conquer, to
win back Calyste by loving kindness, by the virtues of a wife, by the
gentleness of the paschal lamb. She wished, also, to deceive all Paris.
She loved,--loved as courtesans and as angels love, with pride, with
humility. But the opera chanced to be "Otello." When Rubini sang _Il mio
cor si divide_, she rushed away. Music is sometimes mightier than actor
or poet, the two most powerful of all natures, combined. Savinien de
Portenduere accompanied Sabine to the peristyle and put her in the
carriage without being able to understand this sudden flight.

Madame du Guenic now entered a phase of suffering which is peculiar to
the aristocracy. Envious, poor, and miserable beings,--when you see on
the arms of such women golden serpents with diamond heads, necklaces
clasped around their necks, say to yourselves that those vipers sting,
those slender bonds burn to the quick through the delicate flesh. All
such luxury is dearly bought. In situations like that of Sabine, women
curse the pleasures of wealth; they look no longer at the gilding of
their salons; the silk of the divans is jute in their eyes, exotic
flowers are nettles, perfumes poison, the choicest cookery scrapes their
throat like barley-bread, and life becomes as bitter as the Dead Sea.

Two or three examples may serve to show this reaction of luxury upon
happiness; so that all those women who have endured it may behold their
own experience.

Fully aware now of this terrible rivalry, Sabine studied her husband
when he left the house, that she might divine, if possible, the future
of his day. With what restrained fury does a woman fling herself upon
the red-hot spikes of that savage martyrdom! What delirious joy if she
could think he did not go to the rue de Chartres! Calyste returned, and
then the study of his forehead, his hair, his eyes, his countenance,
his demeanor, gave a horrible interest to mere nothings, to observations