!" she said, and, as I paused without looking round, presently
went on--well pleased, perhaps, that I should not see her face.

"One mistake you make in the kindness of your heart, for you are a
stern man with a soft heart, as many English are--you grieve too much
for me. Of course, it is a sorrow--but it is not the great sorrow. You
understand?"

"I think so."

"That came to me many years ago, and was not connected with the
Vicomte de Clericy, but with one who had no title beyond that of
gentleman--and I think there is none higher. It is an old story, and
one that is too often enacted in France, where convenience is placed
before happiness and money above affection. My life has been,
well--happy. Lucille has made it so. And I have an aim in existence
which is in itself a happiness--to make Lucille's life a happy one, to
ensure her that which I have missed, and to avoid a mistake made by
generation after generation of women--namely, to believe that love
comes to us after marriage. It never does so, my friend--never.
Tolerance may come, or, at the best, affection--which is making an
ornament of brass and setting it up where there should be gold--or
nothing."

I stood, half turning my back to Madame, looking down into the
valley--not caring to meet the quiet eyes that had looked straight
into my heart long ago in the room called the boudoir of the house in
the Rue des Palmiers, and had ever since read the thoughts and desires
which I had hidden from the rest of the world. Madame knew, without
any words of mine, that I also had one object in existence, and that
the same as hers--namely, that Lucille's life should be a happy one.

"There is no task so difficult," said Madame, half talking, as I
thought, to herself, "unless it be undertaken by the one man who can
do it without an effort--no task so difficult as that of making a
woman happy. Even her mother cannot be sure of the wisdom of
interference. I always remember some words of your friend, John
Turner, 'When in doubt, do nothing,' and he is a wise man, I think."

The Vicomtesse was an economist of words, and explained herself no
further. We remained for some moments in silence, and it was she who
at length broke it.

"Thank you," she said, "for all your thought and care in verifying
the details of the story you have told me."

"I might have kept it from you, Madame," answered I, "and thus spared
you some sorrow. Perhaps you had been happier in ignorance."