iberality of the Russian Panines, provide a
home? I can hardly make it do for myself. I live at the club, where I
dine cheaply. I ride my friends' horses! I never touch a card, although I
love play. I go much in society; I shine there, and walk home to save the
cost of a carriage. My door-keeper cleans my rooms and keeps my linen in
order. My private life is sad, dull, and humiliating. It is the black
chrysalis of the bright butterfly which you know. That is what Prince
Panine is, my dear Jeanne. A gentleman of good appearance, who lives as
carefully as an old maid. The world sees him elegant and happy, and its
envies his luxury; but this luxury is as deluding as watch-chains made of
pinchbeck. You understand now that I cannot seriously ask you to share
such an existence."

But if, with this sketch of his life, correctly described, Panine thought
to turn the young girl against him, he was mistaken. He had counted
without considering Jeanne's sanguine temperament, which would lead her
to make any sacrifices to keep the man she adored.

"If you were rich, Serge," she said, "I would not have made an effort to
bring you back to me. But you are poor and I have a right to tell you
that I love you. Life with you would be all devotedness and self-denial.
Each pain endured would be a proof of love, and that is why I wish to
suffer. Your life with mine would be neither sad nor humiliated; I would
make it sweet by my tenderness, and bright by my happiness. And we should
be so happy that you would say, 'How could I ever have dreamed of
anything else?'"

"Alas! Jeanne," replied the Prince; "it is a charming and poetic idyl
which you present to me. We should flee far from the world, eh? We should
go to an unknown spot and try to regain paradise lost. How long would
that happiness last? A season during the springtime of our youth. Then
autumn would come, sad and harsh. Our illusions would vanish like the
swallows in romances, and we should find, with alarm, that we had taken
the dream of a day for eternal happiness! Forgive my speaking plain words
of disenchantment," added Serge, seeing Jeanne rising abruptly, "but our
life is being settled at this moment. Reason alone should guide us."

"And I beseech you to be guided only by your heart," cried Mademoiselle
de Cernay, seizing the hands of the Prince, and pressing them with her
trembling fingers. "Remember that you loved me. Say that you love me
still!"

Jeanne had drawn near to