w unwontedly wound
up with that inner something of her own, which was so strongly
fomenting within her. On a certain evening she vanished, and did not
return at all to the establishment...

The matter of fact was, that in the city she had carried on a
protracted romance with a certain notary--an elderly man, sufficiently
rich, but exceedingly niggardly. Their acquaintance had been scraped up
yet a year back, when they had been by chance travelling together on
the same steamer to a suburban monastery, and had begun a conversation.
The clever, handsome Tamara; her enigmatic, depraved smile; her
entertaining conversation; her modest manner of deporting herself, had
captivated the notary. She had even then marked down for herself this
elderly man with picturesque gray hair, with seigniorial manners; an
erstwhile jurisconsult and a man of good family. She did not tell him
about her profession--it pleased her rather to mystify him. She only
hazily, in a few words, hinted at the fact that she was a married lady
of the middle class; that she was unfortunate in domestic life, since
her husband was a gambler and a despot; and that even by fate she was
denied such a consolation as children. At parting she refused to pass
an evening with the notary, and did not want to meet him; but then she
allowed him to write to her--general delivery, under a fictitious name.
A correspondence commenced between them, in which the notary flaunted
his style and the ardency of his feelings, worthy of the heroes of Paul
Bourget. She maintained the same withdrawn, mysterious tone.

Then, being touched by the entreaties of the notary for a meeting, she
made an appointment in Prince Park; was charming, witty, and
languishing; but refused to go with him anywhere.

So she tortured her adorer and skillfully inflamed within him the last
passion, which at times is stronger and more dangerous than first love.
Finally, this summer, when the family of the notary had gone abroad,
she decided to visit his rooms; and here for the first time gave
herself up to him with tears, with twinges of her conscience, and at
the same time with such ardour and tenderness, that the poor secretary
lost his head completely--was plunged entirely into that senile love,
which no longer knows either reason or retrospect; which compels a man
to lose the last thing--the fear of appearing ridiculous.

Tamara was very sparing of her meetings. This inflamed her impatient
friend still