e no finer bird than that to be found in the desert?" she
exclaimed. "You are cheated! She is dignified, lean, lachrymose; she
only needs Lady Dudley's turban!"

"What is it now?" asked Madame de la Baudraye, who had heard the rustle
of a silk dress and the murmur of a woman's voice.

"It is, my darling, that we are now indissolubly united.--I have just
had an answer to the letter you saw me write, which was to break off my
marriage----"

"So that was the party which you gave up?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I will be more than your wife--I am your slave, I give you my
life," said the poor deluded creature. "I did not believe I could love
you more than I did!--Now I shall not be a mere incident, but your whole
life?"

"Yes, my beautiful, my generous Didine."

"Swear to me," said she, "that only death shall divide us."

Lousteau was ready to sweeten his vows with the most fascinating
prettinesses. And this was why. Between the door of the apartment where
he had taken the lorette's farewell kiss, and that of the drawing-room,
where the Muse was reclining, bewildered by such a succession of shocks,
Lousteau had remembered little De la Baudraye's precarious health, his
fine fortune, and Bianchon's remark about Dinah, "She will be a rich
widow!" and he said to himself, "I would a hundred times rather have
Madame de la Baudraye for a wife than Felicie!"

His plan of action was quickly decided on; he determined to play
the farce of passion once more, and to perfection. His mean
self-interestedness and his false vehemence of passion had disastrous
results. Madame de la Baudraye, when she set out from Sancerre for
Paris, had intended to live in rooms of her own quite near to Lousteau;
but the proofs of devotion her lover had given her by giving up such
brilliant prospects, and yet more the perfect happiness of the first
days of their illicit union, kept her from mentioning such a parting.
The second day was to be--and indeed was--a high festival, in which such
a suggestion proposed to "her angel" would have been a discordant note.

Lousteau, on his part, anxious to make Dinah feel herself dependent
on him, kept her in a state of constant intoxication by incessant
amusement. These circumstances hindered two persons so clever as these
were from avoiding the slough into which they fell--that of a life in
common, a piece of folly of which, unfortunately, many instances may be
seen in Paris in literary circles.

And thus was the whol