taining, when you came
in, that the royalists and the republicans have a secret understanding.
You ought to know something about it; is it so?"

"If it were so," said Raoul, "where's the harm? We hate the same thing;
we agree as to our hatreds, we differ only in our love. That's the whole
of it."

"The alliance is odd enough," said de Marsay, giving a comprehensively
meaning glance at the Comtesse Felix and Nathan.

"It won't last," said Rastignac, thinking, perhaps, wholly of politics.

"What do you think, my dear?" asked Madame d'Espard, addressing Marie.

"I know nothing of public affairs," replied the countess.

"But you soon will, madame," said de Marsay, "and then you will be
doubly our enemy."

So saying he left the room with Rastignac, and Madame d'Espard
accompanied them to the door of the first salon. The lovers had the room
to themselves for a few moments. Marie held out her ungloved hand to
Raoul, who took and kissed it as though he were eighteen years old.
The eyes of the countess expressed so noble a tenderness that the tears
which men of nervous temperament can always find at their service came
into Raoul's eyes.

"Where can I see you? where can I speak with you?" he said. "It is death
to be forced to disguise my voice, my look, my heart, my love--"

Moved by that tear Marie promised to drive daily in the Bois, unless the
weather were extremely bad. This promise gave Raoul more pleasure than
he had found in Florine for the last five years.

"I have so many things to say to you! I suffer from the silence to which
we are condemned--"

The countess looked at him eagerly without replying, and at that moment
Madame d'Espard returned to the room.

"Why didn't you answer de Marsay?" she said as she entered.

"We ought to respect the dead," replied Raoul. "Don't you see that he is
dying? Rastignac is his nurse,--hoping to be put in the will."

The countess pretended to have other visits to pay, and left the house.

For this quarter of an hour Raoul had sacrificed important interests
and most precious time. Marie was perfectly ignorant of the life of such
men, involved in complicated affairs and burdened with exacting toil.
Women of society are still under the influence of the traditions of the
eighteenth century, in which all positions were definite and assured.
Few women know the harassments in the life of most men who in these days
have a position to make and to maintain, a fame to reach, a for