ur
years since, had given new life to Lousteau's articles.

This phase was to the poor lawyer's hapless passion like the late season
known as the Indian summer after a sunless year. He affected to be older
than he was, to have the right to befriend Dinah without doing her
an injury, and kept himself at a distance as though he were young,
handsome, and compromising, like a man who has happiness to conceal. He
tried to keep his little attentions a profound secret, and the trifling
gifts which Dinah showed to every one; he endeavored to suggest a
dangerous meaning for his little services.

"He plays at passion," said the Countess, laughing. She made fun of
Monsieur de Clagny to his face, and the lawyer said, "She notices me."

"I impress that poor man so deeply," said she to her mother, laughing,
"that if I would say Yes, I believe he would say No."

One evening Monsieur de Clagny and his wife were taking his dear
Countess home from the theatre, and she was deeply pensive. They had
been to the first performance of Leon Gozlan's first play, _La Main
Droite et la Main Gauche_ (The Right Hand and the Left).

"What are you thinking about?" asked the lawyer, alarmed at his idol's
dejection.

This deep and persistent melancholy, though disguised by the Countess,
was a perilous malady for which Monsieur de Clagny knew no remedy; for
true love is often clumsy, especially when it is not reciprocated. True
love takes its expression from the character. Now, this good man loved
after the fashion of Alceste, when Madame de la Baudraye wanted to be
loved after the manner of Philinte. The meaner side of love can never
get on with the Misanthrope's loyalty. Thus, Dinah had taken care never
to open her heart to this man. How could she confess to him that she
sometimes regretted the slough she had left?

She felt a void in this fashionable life; she had no one for whom to
dress, or whom to tell of her successes and triumphs. Sometimes the
memory of her wretchedness came to her, mingled with memories of
consuming joys. She would hate Lousteau for not taking any pains to
follow her; she would have liked to get tender or furious letters from
him.

Dinah made no reply, so Monsieur de Clagny repeated the question, taking
the Countess' hand and pressing it between his own with devout respect.

"Will you have the right hand or the left?" said she, smiling.

"The left," said he, "for I suppose you mean the truth or a fib."

"Well, then