ilet or of language; perfect
her taste in the delicate and fleeting changes of the prevailing modes,
and acquire some additional graces. The young Marquise, who reigned and
scintillated like a bright star in these high regions of social life,
lent herself to the designs of her neighbor. She seemed to take a kind of
maternal interest in Mademoiselle de Tecle, and frequently added her
advice to her example. She assisted at her toilet and gave the final
touches with her own dainty hands; and the young girl, in return, loved,
admired, and confided in her.

Camors also enjoyed the hospitalities of the General once every season,
but was not his guest as often as he wished. He seldom remained at
Campvallon longer than a week. Since the return of the Marquise to France
he had resumed the relations of a kinsman and friend with her husband and
herself; but, while trying to adopt the most natural manner, he treated
them both with a certain reserve, which astonished the General. It will
not surprise the reader, who recollects the secret and powerful reasons
which justified this circumspection.

For Camors, in renouncing the greater part of the restraints which
control and bind men in their relations with one another, had religiously
intended to preserve one--the sentiment of honor. Many times, in the
course of this life, he had felt himself embarrassed to limit and fix
with certainty the boundaries of the only moral law he wished to respect.

It is easy to know exactly what is in the Bible; it is not easy to know
exactly what the code of honor commands.

CHAPTER XII

CIRCE

But there exists, nevertheless, in this code one article, as to which M.
de Camors could not deceive himself, and it was that which forbade his
attempting to assail the honor of the General under penalty of being in
his own eyes, as a gentleman, a felon and foresworn. He had accepted from
this old man confidence, affection, services, benefits--everything which
could bind one man inviolably to another man--if there be beneath the
heavens anything called honor. He felt this profoundly.

His conduct toward Madame de Campvallon had been irreproachable; and all
the more so, because the only woman he was interdicted from loving was
the only woman in Paris, or in the universe, who naturally pleased him
most. He entertained for her, at once, the interest which attaches to
forbidden fruit, to the attraction of strange beauty, and to the mystery
of an impene