velvety grass and primeval elms, and at the end Savigny awaiting
her with its great gate wide open!

And how thoroughly at ease she felt amid all those refinements of
wealth! How perfectly that sort of life suited her! It seemed to her
that she never had known any other.

Suddenly, in the midst of her intoxication, arrived a letter from
Frantz, which brought her back to the realities of her life, to
her wretched fate as the future wife of a government clerk, which
transported her, whether she would or no, to the mean little apartment
they would occupy some day at the top of some dismal house, whose heavy
atmosphere, dense with privation, she seemed already to breathe.

Should she break her betrothal promise?

She certainly could do it, as she had given no other pledge than her
word. But when he had left her, who could say that she would not wish
him back?

In that little brain, turned by ambition, the strangest ideas chased one
another. Sometimes, while Grandfather Gardinois, who had laid aside in
her honor his old-fashioned hunting-jackets and swanskin waistcoats, was
jesting with her, amusing himself by contradicting her in order to
draw out a sharp reply, she would gaze steadily, coldly into his eyes,
without replying. Ah! if only he were ten years younger! But the thought
of becoming Madame Gardinois did not long occupy her. A new personage, a
new hope came into her life.

After Sidonie's arrival, Georges Fromont, who was seldom seen at Savigny
except on Sundays, adopted the habit of coming to dinner almost every
day.

He was a tall, slender, pale youth, of refined appearance. Having no
father or mother, he had been brought up by his uncle, M. Fromont,
and was looked upon by him to succeed him in business, and probably
to become Claire's husband. That ready-made future did not arouse any
enthusiasm in Georges. In the first place business bored him. As for
his cousin, the intimate good-fellowship of an education in common and
mutual confidence existed between them, but nothing more, at least on
his side.

With Sidonie, on the contrary, he was exceedingly embarrassed and
shy, and at the same time desirous of producing an effect--a totally
different man, in short. She had just the spurious charm, a little free,
which was calculated to attract a superficial nature, and it was not
long before she discovered the impression that she produced upon him.

When the two girls were walking together in the park, it was