and so losing all, the
infinite amount of rapid study he was forced to give to questions which
passed as rapidly as clouds in this all-consuming age, etc., etc.

Raoul made a great mistake. The Marquise d'Espard had said to him on
one occasion, "Nothing is more naive than a first love." As he unfolded
before Marie's eyes this life which seemed to her immense, the countess
was overcome with admiration. She had thought Nathan grand, she now
considered him sublime. She blamed herself for loving him too much;
begged him to come to her only when he could do so without difficulty.
Wait? indeed she could wait! In future, she should know how to sacrifice
her enjoyments. Wishing to be his stepping-stone was she really an
obstacle? She wept with despair.

"Women," she said, with tears in her eyes, "can only love; men act; they
have a thousand ways in which they are bound to act. But we can only
think, and pray, and worship."

A love that had sacrificed so much for her sake deserved a recompense.
She looked about her like a nightingale descending from a leafy covert
to drink at a spring, to see if she were alone in the solitude, if the
silence hid no witness; then she raised her head to Raoul, who bent his
own, and let him take one kiss, the first and the only one that she ever
gave in secret, feeling happier at that moment than she had felt in five
years. Raoul thought all his toils well-paid. They both walked forward
they scarcely knew where, but it was on the road to Auteuil; presently,
however, they were forced to return and find their carriages, pacing
together with the rhythmic step well-known to lovers. Raoul had faith in
that kiss given with the quiet facility of a sacred sentiment. All the
evil of it was in the mind of the world, not in that of the woman who
walked beside him. Marie herself, given over to the grateful admiration
which characterizes the love of woman, walked with a firm, light step
on the gravelled path, saying, like Raoul, but few words; yet those few
were felt and full of meaning. The sky was cloudless, the tall trees had
burgeoned, a few green shoots were already brightening their myriad
of brown twigs. The shrubs, the birches, the willows, the poplars were
showing their first diaphanous and tender foliage. No soul resists these
harmonies. Love explained Nature as it had already explained society to
Marie's heart.

"I wish you have never loved any one but me," she said.

"Your wish is realized," re