as been unjustly accused and
condemned, and Mme. de Bargeton was now on the verge of this anomalous
position.

The obstacles at the outset of a passion of this kind are alarming to
inexperience, and those in the way of the two lovers were very like
the bonds by which the population of Lilliput throttled Gulliver, a
multiplicity of nothings, which made all movement impossible, and baffle
the most vehement desires. Mme. de Bargeton, for instance, must always
be visible. If she had denied herself to visitors when Lucien was with
her, it would have been all over with her; she might as well have run
away with him at once. It is true that they sat in the boudoir, now
grown so familiar to Lucien that he felt as if he had a right to
be there; but the doors stood scrupulously open, and everything was
arranged with the utmost propriety. M. de Bargeton pervaded the house
like a cockchafer; it never entered his head that his wife could wish
to be alone with Lucien. If he had been the only person in the way,
Nais could have got rid of him, sent him out of the house, or given him
something to do; but he was not the only one; visitors flocked in upon
her, and so much the more as curiosity increased, for your provincial
has a natural bent for teasing, and delights to thwart a growing
passion. The servants came and went about the house promiscuously and
without a summons; they had formed the habits with a mistress who
had nothing to conceal; any change now made in her household ways was
tantamount to a confession, and Angouleme still hung in doubt.

Mme. de Bargeton could not set foot outside her house but the whole
town knew whither she was going. To take a walk alone with Lucien out of
Angouleme would have been a decided measure, indeed; it would have been
less dangerous to shut herself up with him in the house. There would
have been comments the next day if Lucien had stayed on till midnight
after the rooms were emptied. Within as without her house, Mme. de
Bargeton lived in public.

These details describe life in the provinces; an intrigue is either
openly avoided or impossible anywhere.

Like all women carried away for the first time by passion, Louise
discovered the difficulties of her position one by one. They frightened
her, and her terror reacted upon the fond talk that fills the fairest
hours which lovers spend alone together. Mme. de Bargeton had no country
house whither she could take her beloved poet, after the manner o