admirers, she saw no lover
among them. No man here realized the poetical ideal which she and Anna
Grossetete had been wont to sketch. When, stirred by the involuntary
temptations suggested by the homage she received, she asked herself, "If
I had to make a choice, who should it be?" she owned to a preference for
Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, a gentleman of good family, whose appearance
and manners she liked, but whose cold nature, selfishness, and narrow
ambition, never rising above a prefecture and a good marriage, repelled
her. At a word from his family, who were alarmed lest he should be
killed for an intrigue, the Vicomte had already deserted a woman he had
loved in the town where he previously had been Sous-prefet.

Monsieur de Clagny, on the other hand, the only man whose mind appealed
to hers, whose ambition was founded on love, and who knew what love
means, Dinah thought perfectly odious. When Dinah saw herself condemned
to six years' residence at Sancerre she was on the point of accepting
the devotion of Monsieur le Vicomte de Chargeboeuf; but he was appointed
to a prefecture and left the district. To Monsieur de Clagny's great
satisfaction, the new Sous-prefet was a married man whose wife made
friends with Dinah. The lawyer had now no rival to fear but Monsieur
Gravier. Now Monsieur Gravier was the typical man of forty of whom women
make use while they laugh at him, whose hopes they intentionally and
remorselessly encourage, as we are kind to a beast of burden. In six
years, among all the men who were introduced to her from twenty leagues
round, there was not one in whose presence Dinah was conscious of the
excitement caused by personal beauty, by a belief in promised happiness,
by the impact of a superior soul, or the anticipation of a love affair,
even an unhappy one.

Thus none of Dinah's choicest faculties had a chance of developing;
she swallowed many insults to her pride, which was constantly suffering
under the husband who so calmly walked the stage as supernumerary in the
drama of her life. Compelled to bury her wealth of love, she showed only
the surface to the world. Now and then she would try to rouse herself,
try to form some manly resolution; but she was kept in leading strings
by the need for money. And so, slowly and in spite of the ambitious
protests and grievous recriminations of her own mind, she underwent
the provincial metamorphosis here described. Each day took with it a
fragment of her spirit