find a language for themselves in some sublime melody, some song lost to
the world.

The General was listening now to such a song; a mysterious music unknown
to all other ears, as the solitary plaint of some mateless bird dying
alone in a virgin forest.

"Great Heavens! what are you playing there?" he asked in an unsteady
voice.

"The prelude of a ballad, called, I believe, _Fleuve du Tage_."

"I did not know that there was such music in a piano," he returned.

"Ah!" she said, and for the first time she looked at him as a woman
looks at the man she loves, "nor do you know, my friend, that I love
you, and that you cause me horrible suffering; and that I feel that I
must utter my cry of pain without putting it too plainly into words. If
I did not, I should yield----But you see nothing."

"And you will not make me happy!"

"Armand, I should die of sorrow the next day."

The General turned abruptly from her and went. But out in the street he
brushed away the tears that he would not let fall.

The religious phase lasted for three months. At the end of that time the
Duchess grew weary of vain repetitions; the Deity, bound hand and foot,
was delivered up to her lover. Possibly she may have feared that by
sheer dint of talking of eternity she might perpetuate his love in this
world and the next. For her own sake, it must be believed that no man
had touched her heart, or her conduct would be inexcusable. She was
young; the time when men and women feel that they cannot afford to lose
time or to quibble over their joys was still far off. She, no doubt, was
on the verge not of first love, but of her first experience of the bliss
of love. And from inexperience, for want of the painful lessons which
would have taught her to value the treasure poured out at her feet, she
was playing with it. Knowing nothing of the glory and rapture of the
light, she was fain to stay in the shadow.

Armand was just beginning to understand this strange situation; he put
his hope in the first word spoken by nature. Every evening, as he came
away from Mme de Langeais', he told himself that no woman would accept
the tenderest, most delicate proofs of a man's love during seven months,
nor yield passively to the slighter demands of passion, only to cheat
love at the last. He was waiting patiently for the sun to gain power,
not doubting but that he should receive the earliest fruits. The married
woman's hesitations and the religious scruples he c