n the one hand, she shrank instinctively from the caresses of female
authors and the familiar greetings of male authors, who frankly lived
in philosophical disdain of the conventions respected by sober, decorous
mortals. On the other hand, in the civilities of those who, while they
courted a rising celebrity, still held their habitual existence apart
from the artistic world, there was a certain air of condescension,
of patronage, towards the young stranger with no other protector but
Signora Venosta, the ci-devant public singer, and who had made her debut
in a journal edited by M. Gustave Rameau, which, however disguised by
exaggerated terms of praise, wounded her pride of woman in flattering
her vanity as author. Among this latter set were wealthy, high-born men,
who addressed her as woman--as woman beautiful and young--with words of
gallantry that implied love, but certainly no thought of marriage,--many
of the most ardent were indeed married already. But once launched into
the thick of Parisian hospitalities, it was difficult to draw back. The
Venosta wept at the thought of missing some lively soiree, and Savarin
laughed at her shrinking fastidiousness as that of a child's ignorance
of the world. But still she had her mornings to herself; and in those
mornings, devoted to the continuance of her work (for the commencement
was in print before a third was completed), she forgot the commonplace
world that received her in the evenings. Insensibly to herself the tone
of this work had changed as it proceeded. It had begun seriously indeed,
but in the seriousness there was a certain latent joy. It might be the
joy of having found vent of utterance; it might be rather a joy still
more latent, inspired by the remembrance of Graham's words and looks,
and by the thought that she had renounced all idea of the professional
career which he had evidently disapproved. Life then seemed to her a
bright possession. We have seen that she had begun her roman without
planning how it should end. She had, however, then meant it to end,
somehow or other, happily. Now the lustre had gone from life; the tone
of the work was saddened; it foreboded a tragic close. But for the
general reader it became, with every chapter, still more interesting;
the poor child had a singularly musical gift of style,--a music which
lent itself naturally to pathos. Every very young writer knows how his
work, if one of feeling, will colour itself from the views of some