er, and yet
love has not lost its freshness and relish. The lovers know each other
well, but all is not yet understood; they have not been a second time
to the same secret haunts of the soul; they have not studied each other
till they know, as they must later, the very thought, word, and gesture
that responds to every event, the greatest and the smallest. Enchantment
reigns; there are no collisions, no differences of opinion, no cold
looks. Their two souls are always on the same side. And Dinah would
speak the magical words, emphasized by the yet more magical expression
and looks which every woman can use under such circumstances.

"When you cease to love me, kill me.--If you should cease to love me, I
believe I could kill you first and myself after."

To this sweet exaggeration, Lousteau would reply:

"All I ask of God is to see you as constant as I shall be. It is you who
will desert me!"

"My love is supreme."

"Supreme," echoed Lousteau. "Come, now? Suppose I am dragged away to
a bachelor party, and find there one of my former mistresses, and she
makes fun of me; I, out of vanity, behave as if I were free, and do not
come in here till next morning--would you still love me?"

"A woman is only sure of being loved when she is preferred; and if you
came back to me, if--Oh! you make me understand what the happiness would
be of forgiving the man I adore."

"Well, then, I am truly loved for the first time in my life!" cried
Lousteau.

"At last you understand that!" said she.

Lousteau proposed that they should each write a letter setting forth the
reasons which would compel them to end by suicide. Once in possession
of such a document, each might kill the other without danger in case of
infidelity. But in spite of mutual promises, neither wrote the letter.

The journalist, happy for the moment, promised himself that he would
deceive Dinah when he should be tired of her, and would sacrifice
everything to the requirements of that deception. To him Madame de la
Baudraye was a fortune in herself. At the same time, he felt the yoke.

Dinah, by consenting to this union, showed a generous mind and the power
derived from self-respect. In this absolute intimacy, in which both
lovers put off their masks, the young woman never abdicated her modesty,
her masculine rectitude, and the strength peculiar to ambitious souls,
which formed the basis of her character. Lousteau involuntarily held
her in high esteem. As a Parisian,