was at a dead stop.
Now, to do Rameau justice, he was by no means an avaricious or mercenary
man. But he yearned for modes of life to which money was essential. He
liked his "comforts;" and his comforts included the luxuries of elegance
and show-comforts not to be attained by marriage with Isaura under
existing circumstances.

Nevertheless it is quite true that he had urged her to marry him at
once, before he had quitted his father's house; and her modest shrinking
from such proposal, however excellent the reasons for delay in the
national calamities of the time, as well as the poverty which the
calamity threatened, had greatly wounded his amour propre. He had
always felt that her affection for him was not love; and though he could
reconcile himself to that conviction when many solid advantages were
attached to the prize of her love, and when he was ill, and penitent,
and maudlin, and the calm affection of a saint seemed to him infinitely
preferable to the vehement passion of a sinner,--yet when Isaura
was only Isaura by herself--Isaura minus all the et cetera which had
previously been taken into account--the want of adoration for himself
very much lessened her value.

Still, though he acquiesced in the delayed fulfilment of the engagement
with Isaura, he had no thought of withdrawing from the engagement
itself, and after a slight pause he replied: "You do me great injustice
if you suppose that the occupations to which I devote myself render me
less sensible to the merits of Mademoiselle Cicogna, or less eager
for our union. On the contrary, I will confide to you--as a man of the
world--one main reason why I quitted my father's house, and why I desire
to keep my present address a secret. Mademoiselle Caumartin conceived
for me a passion--a caprice--which was very flattering for a time, but
which latterly became very troublesome. Figure to yourself--she
daily came to our house while I was lying ill, and with the greatest
difficulty my mother got her out of it. That was not all. She pestered
me with letters containing all sorts of threats--nay, actually kept
watch at the house; and one day when I entered the carriage with my
mother and Signora Venosta for a drive in the Bois (meaning to call for
Isaura by the way), she darted to the carriage-door, caught my hand, and
would have made a scene if the coachman had given her leave to do so.
Luckily he had the tact to whip on his horses, and we escaped. I had
some little dif