an the pure girl. To Honorine's heart fidelity had not
been a duty, but the inevitable; while Amelie would serenely pronounce
the most solemn promises without knowing their purport or to what they
bound her. The crushed, the dead woman, so to speak, the sinner to be
reinstated, seemed to me sublime; she incited the special generosities
of a man's nature; she demanded all the treasures of the heart, all
the resources of strength; she filled his life and gave the zest of
a conflict to happiness; whereas Amelie, chaste and confiding,
would settle down into the sphere of peaceful motherhood, where the
commonplace must be its poetry, and where my mind would find no struggle
and no victory.

"Of the plains of Champagne and the snowy, storm-beaten but sublime
Alps, what young man would choose the chalky, monotonous level? No; such
comparisons are fatal and wrong on the threshold of the Mairie. Alas!
only the experience of life can teach us that marriage excludes passion,
that a family cannot have its foundation on the tempests of love. After
having dreamed of impossible love, with its infinite caprices, after
having tasted the tormenting delights of the ideal, I saw before me
modest reality. Pity me, for what could be expected! At five-and-twenty
I did not trust myself; but I took a manful resolution.

"I went back to the Count to announce the arrival of his relations, and
I saw him grown young again in the reflected light of hope.

"'What ails you, Maurice?' said he, struck by my changed expression.

"'Monsieur le Comte----'

"'No longer Octave? You, to whom I shall owe my life, my happiness----'

"'My dear Octave, if you should succeed in bringing the Countess back
to her duty, I have studied her well'--(he looked at me as Othello must
have looked at Iago when Iago first contrived to insinuate a suspicion
into the Moor's mind)--'she must never see me again; she must never know
that Maurice was your secretary. Never mention my name to her, or
all will be undone.... You have got me an appointment as Maitre
des Requetes--well, get me instead some diplomatic post abroad, a
consulship, and do not think of my marrying Amelie.--Oh! do not be
uneasy,' I added, seeing him draw himself up, 'I will play my part to
the end.'

"'Poor boy!' said he, taking my hand, which he pressed, while he kept
back the tears that were starting to his eyes.

"'You gave me the gloves,' I said, laughing, 'but I have not put them
on; that is all.'