honor of the General under penalty of being
in his own eyes, as a gentleman, a felon and foresworn. He had accepted
from this old man confidence, affection, services, benefits--everything
which could bind one man inviolably to another man--if there be beneath
the heavens anything called honor. He felt this profoundly.

His conduct toward Madame de Campvallon had been irreproachable; and all
the more so, because the only woman he was interdicted from loving was
the only woman in Paris, or in the universe, who naturally pleased him
most. He entertained for her, at once, the interest which attaches to
forbidden fruit, to the attraction of strange beauty, and to the mystery
of an impenetrable sphinx. She was, at this time, more goddess-like than
ever. The immense fortune of her husband, and the adulation which it
brought her, had placed her on a golden car. On this she seated herself
with a gracious and native majesty, as if in her proper place.

The luxury of her toilet, of her jewels, of her house and of her
equipages, was of regal magnificence. She blended the taste of an artist
with that of a patrician. Her person appeared really to be made divine
by the rays of this splendor. Large, blonde, graceful, the eyes blue
and unfathomable, the forehead grave, the mouth pure and proud it was
impossible to see her enter a salon with her light, gliding step, or to
see her reclining in her carriage, her hands folded serenely, without
dreaming of the young immortals whose love brought death.

She had even those traits of physiognomy, stern and wild, which the
antique sculptors doubtless had surprised in supernatural visitations,
and which they have stamped on the eyes and the lips of their marble
gods. Her arms and shoulders, perfect in form, seemed models, in
the midst of the rosy and virgin snow which covered the neighboring
mountains. She was truly superb and bewitching. The Parisian world
respected as much as it admired her, for she played her difficult part
of young bride to an old man so perfectly as to avoid scandal. Without
any pretence of extraordinary devotion, she knew how to join to her
worldly pomps the exercise of charity, and all the other practices of an
elegant piety. Madame de la Roche-Jugan, who watched her closely, as one
watching a prey, testified, herself, in her favor; and judged her more
and more worthy of her son. And Camors, who observed her, in spite of
himself, with an eager curiosity, was finally induc