beloved, she dared to be eloquent or beautiful only when alone.
Unhappy and oppressed in the broad daylight of life, she might have been
enchanting could she have expanded in the shadow. Often, to test the
love thus offered to her, and at the risk of losing it, she refused to
wear the draperies that concealed some portion of her defects, and her
Spanish eyes grew entrancing when they saw that Balthazar thought her
beautiful as before.

Nevertheless, even so, distrust soiled the rare moments when she yielded
herself to happiness. She asked herself if Claes were not seeking a
domestic slave,--one who would necessarily keep the house? whether he
had himself no secret imperfection which obliged him to be satisfied
with a poor, deformed girl? Such perpetual misgivings gave a priceless
value to the few short hours during which she trusted the sincerity and
the permanence of a love which was to avenge her on the world. Sometimes
she provoked hazardous discussions, and probed the inner consciousness
of her lover by exaggerating her defects. At such times she often wrung
from Balthazar truths that were far from flattering; but she loved the
embarrassment into which he fell when she had led him to say that what
he loved in a woman was a noble soul and the devotion which made each
day of life a constant happiness; and that after a few years of married
life the handsomest of women was no more to a husband than the ugliest.
After gathering up what there was of truth in all such paradoxes tending
to reduce the value of beauty, Balthazar would suddenly perceive the
ungraciousness of his remarks, and show the goodness of his heart by the
delicate transitions of thought with which he proved to Mademoiselle de
Temninck that she was perfect in his eyes.

The spirit of devotion which, it may be, is the crown of love in a
woman, was not lacking in this young girl, who had always despaired of
being loved; at first, the prospect of a struggle in which feeling
and sentiment would triumph over actual beauty tempted her; then, she
fancied a grandeur in giving herself to a man in whose love she did not
believe; finally, she was forced to admit that happiness, however short
its duration might be, was too precious to resign.

Such hesitations, such struggles, giving the charm and the
unexpectedness of passion to this noble creature, inspired Balthazar
with a love that was well-nigh chivalric.

CHAPTER III

The marriage took place at the