life! And if that man loves her
truly, his heart must surely vibrate with pain to the deep trouble in
hers. Are they not twice unhappy?"

There was a short pause. Then she rose smiling.

"You little suspected, when you came to Courcelles, that you were to
hear a sermon, did you?"

Gaston felt even further than at first from this extraordinary woman.
Was the charm of that delightful hour due after all to the coquetry of
the mistress of the house? She had been anxious to display her wit. He
bowed stiffly to the Vicomtesse, and went away in desperation.

On the way home he tried to detect the real character of a creature
supple and hard as a steel spring; but he had seen her pass through so
many phases, that he could not make up his mind about her. The tones
of her voice, too, were ringing in his ears; her gestures, the little
movements of her head, and the varying expression of her eyes grew
more gracious in memory, more fascinating as he thought of them.
The Vicomtesse's beauty shone out again for him in the darkness; his
reviving impressions called up yet others, and he was enthralled anew by
womanly charm and wit, which at first he had not perceived. He fell to
wandering musings, in which the most lucid thoughts grow refractory and
flatly contradict each other, and the soul passes through a brief
frenzy fit. Youth only can understand all that lies in the dithyrambic
outpourings of youth when, after a stormy siege, of the most frantic
folly and coolest common-sense, the heart finally yields to the assault
of the latest comer, be it hope, or despair, as some mysterious power
determines.

At three-and-twenty, diffidence nearly always rules a man's conduct; he
is perplexed with a young girl's shyness, a girl's trouble; he is afraid
lest he should express his love ill, sees nothing but difficulties, and
takes alarm at them; he would be bolder if he loved less, for he has no
confidence in himself, and with a growing sense of the cost of happiness
comes a conviction that the woman he loves cannot easily be won;
perhaps, too, he is giving himself up too entirely to his own pleasure,
and fears that he can give none; and when, for his misfortune, his idol
inspires him with awe, he worships in secret and afar, and unless his
love is guessed, it dies away. Then it often happens that one of these
dead early loves lingers on, bright with illusions in many a young
heart. What man is there but keeps within him these virgin memori