ch to mourn for him, and an
enthusiastic ardor in speaking of him. This, of course, only inflamed
her youthful adorer the more and made him more eloquent and
persuasive.

In short, this severe widowhood ended in a marriage; but the widow did
not abdicate, and remained--altho married--more than ever the widow of
a great man; well knowing that herein lay, in the eyes of her second
husband, her real prestige. As she felt herself much older than he, to
prevent his perceiving it, she overwhelmed him with her disdain, with
a kind of vague pity, and unexprest and offensive regret at her
condescending marriage. However, he was not wounded by it, quite the
contrary. He was so convinced of his inferiority and thought it so
natural that the memory of such a man should reign despotically in her
heart! In order the better to maintain in him this humble attitude,
she would at times read over with him the letters the great man had
written to her when he was courting her. This return toward the past
rejuvenated her some fifteen years, lent her the assurance of a
handsome and beloved woman, seen through all the wild love and
delightful exaggeration of written passion. That she since then had
changed her young husband cared little, loving her on the faith of
another, and drawing therefrom I know not what strange kind of vanity.
It seemed to him that these passionate appeals added to his own, and
that he inherited a whole past of love.

A strange couple indeed! It was in society, however, that they
presented the most curious spectacle. I sometimes caught sight of them
at the theater. No one would have recognized the timid and shy young
woman, who formerly accompanied the maestro, lost in the gigantic
shadow he cast around him. Now, seated upright in the front of the
box, she displayed herself, attracting all eyes by the pride of her
own glance. It might be said that her head was surrounded by her first
husband's halo of glory, his name reechoing around her like a homage
or a reproach. The other one, seated a little behind her, with the
subservient physiognomy of one ready for every abnegation in life,
watched each of her movements, ready to attend to her slightest wish.

At home the peculiarity of their attitude was still more noticeable. I
remember a certain evening party they gave a year after their
marriage. The husband moved about among the crowd of guests, proud but
rather embarrassed at gathering together so many in his own house