always oblique, less from modesty than from
fear and shame. Such beings never forgive society for their false
position because they never forgive themselves for it.

Now it is impossible for a woman who is perpetually at war with
herself and living in contradiction to her true life, to leave others
in peace or refrain from envying their happines. The whole range of
these sad truths could be read in the dulled gray eyes of Mademoiselle
Gamard; the dark circles that surrounded those eyes told of the inward
conflicts of her solitary life. All the wrinkles on her face were in
straight lines. The structure of her forehead and cheeks was rigid and
prominent. She allowed, with apparent indifference, certain scattered
hairs, once brown, to grow upon her chin. Her thin lips scarcely
covered teeth that were too long, though still quite white. Her
complexion was dark, and her hair, originally black, had turned gray
from frightful headaches,--a misfortune which obliged her to wear a
false front. Not knowing how to put it on so as to conceal the
junction between the real and the false, there were often little gaps
between the border of her cap and the black string with which this
semi-wig (always badly curled) was fastened to her head. Her gown,
silk in summer, merino in winter, and always brown in color, was
invariably rather tight for her angular figure and thin arms. Her
collar, limp and bent, exposed too much the red skin of a neck which
was ribbed like an oak-leaf in winter seen in the light. Her origin
explains to some extent the defects of her conformation. She was the
daughter of a wood-merchant, a peasant, who had risen from the ranks.
She might have been plump at eighteen, but no trace remained of the
fair complexion and pretty color of which she was wont to boast. The
tones of her flesh had taken the pallid tints so often seen in
"devotes." Her aquiline nose was the feature that chiefly proclaimed
the despotism of her nature, and the flat shape of her forehead the
narrowness of her mind. Her movements had an odd abruptness which
precluded all grace; the mere motion with which she twitched her
handkerchief from her bag and blew her nose with a loud noise would
have shown her character and habits to a keen observer. Being rather
tall, she held herself very erect, and justified the remark of a
naturalist who once explained the peculiar gait of old maids by
declaring that their joints were consolidating. When she walked her