m the Consul, and was immediately
joined by Claude Vignon, who said in her ear:

"A bit of a coxcomb is M. de l'Hostal."

"No," replied she, whispering to Claude these words: "for he has not yet
guessed that Honorine would have loved him.--Oh!" she exclaimed, seeing
the Consul's wife approaching, "his wife was listening! Unhappy man!"

Eleven was striking by all the clocks, and the guests went home on foot
along the seashore.

"Still, that is not life," said Mademoiselle des Touches. "That woman
was one of the rarest, and perhaps the most extraordinary exceptions in
intellect--a pearl! Life is made up of various incidents, of pain and
pleasure alternately. The Paradise of Dante, that sublime expression of
the ideal, that perpetual blue, is to be found only in the soul; to ask
it of the facts of life is a luxury against which nature protests every
hour. To such souls as those the six feet of a cell, and the kneeling
chair are all they need."

"You are right," said Leon de Lora; "but good-for-nothing as I may be, I
cannot help admiring a woman who is capable, as that one was, of living
by the side of a studio, under a painter's roof, and never coming down,
nor seeing the world, nor dipping her feet in the street mud."

"Such a thing has been known--for a few months," said Claude Vignon,
with deep irony.

"Comtesse Honorine is not unique of her kind," replied the Ambassador
to Mademoiselle des Touches. "A man, nay, and a politician, a bitter
writer, was the object of such a passion; and the pistol shot which
killed him hit not him alone; the woman who loved lived like a nun ever
after."

"Then there are yet some great souls in this age!" said Camille Maupin,
and she stood for some minutes pensively leaning on the balustrade of
the quay.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Bauvan, Comte Octave de
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Bianchon, Horace
Father Goriot
The Atheist's Mass
Cesar Birotteau
The Commission in Lunacy
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Bachelor's Establishment
The Secrets of a Princess
The Government Clerks
Pierrette
A Study of Woman
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Seamy Side of History
The Magic Skin
A Second Home
A Prince of Bohemia
Letters of Two Brides
The Muse of t