there are many pleasures in which he alone is the
guest. If he were M. de Navarreins and I a d'Espard, society would never
think of separating us; it would want us always together. His habits are
formed; he does not suspect the humiliation which weighs upon my heart.
Indeed, if he had the slightest inkling of this small sorrow which I am
ashamed to own, he would drop society, he would become more of a prig
than the people who come between us. But he would hamper his progress,
he would make enemies, he would raise up obstacles by imposing me upon
the salons where I would be subject to a thousand slights. That is why I
prefer my sufferings to what would happen were they discovered.

"Adolphe will succeed! He carries my revenge in his beautiful head, does
this man of genius. One day the world shall pay for all these slights.
But when? Perhaps I shall be forty-five. My beautiful youth will have
passed in my chimney-corner, and with this thought: Adolphe smiles,
he is enjoying the society of fair women, he is playing the devoted to
them, while none of these attentions come my way.

"It may be that these will finally take him from me!

"No one undergoes slight without feeling it, and I feel that I am
slighted, though young, beautiful and virtuous. Now, can I keep from
thinking this way? Can I control my anger at the thought that Adolphe is
dining in the city without me? I take no part in his triumphs; I do not
hear the witty or profound remarks made to others! I could no longer be
content with bourgeois receptions whence he rescued me, upon finding me
_distinguee_, wealthy, young, beautiful and witty. There lies the evil,
and it is irremediable.

"In a word, for some cause, it is only since I cannot go to a certain
salon that I want to go there. Nothing is more natural of the ways of
a human heart. The ancients were wise in having their _gyneceums_. The
collisions between the pride of the women, caused by these gatherings,
though it dates back only four centuries, has cost our own day much
disaffection and numerous bitter debates.

"Be that as it may, my dear, Adolphe is always warmly welcomed when he
comes back home. Still, no nature is strong enough to await always with
the same ardor. What a morrow that will be, following the evening when
his welcome is less warm!

"Now do you see the depth of the fold which I mentioned? A fold in the
heart is an abyss, like a crevasse in the Alps--a profundity whose depth
and exten