appear even unreasonable. How hard it is to call
in reason against the assault of flattery! How difficult to resist
the force of an illusion by any appeal to our good sense and calmer
judgment!

It must not be supposed from this that I seriously contemplated such a
possible turn of fortune,--far less wished for it. No; my satisfaction
had a different source. It lay in the thought that I, the humble captain
of hussars, should ever be thought of as the suitor of the greatest
beauty and the richest dowry of the day: here was the mainspring of
my flattered pride. As to any other feeling, I had none. I admired
Mademoiselle de Lacostellerie greatly; she was, perhaps, the very
handsomest girl I ever saw; there was not one in the whole range
of Parisian society so much sought after; and there was a degree of
distinction in being accounted even among the number of her admirers.
Besides this, there lay a lurking desire in my heart that Marie de
Meudon (for as such only could I think of her) should hear me thus
spoken of. It seemed to me like a weak revenge on her own indifference
to me; and I longed to make anything a cause of connecting my fate with
the idea of her who yet held my whole heart.

Only men who live much to themselves and their own thoughts know the
pleasure of thus linking their fortunes, by some imaginary chain, to
that of those they love. They are the straws that drowning men catch at;
but still, for the moment, they sustain the sinking courage, and nerve
the heart where all is failing. I felt this acutely. I knew well that
she was not, nor could be, anything to me; but I knew, also, that to
divest my mind of her image was to live in darkness, and that the mere
chance of being remembered by her was happiness itself. It was while
hearing of her I first imbibed the soldier's ardor from her own brother.
She herself had placed before me the glorious triumphs of that career in
words that never ceased to ring in my ears. All my hopes of distinction,
my aspirations for success, were associated with the half prediction
she had uttered; and I burned for an occasion by which I could signalize
myself,--that she might read my name, perchance might say, "And _he_
loved me!"

In such a world of dreamy thought I passed day after day. Duchesne was
gone, and I had no intimate companion to share my hours with, nor with
whom I could expand in social freedom. Meanwhile, the gay life of the
capital continued its onward course; fe