a peaceful retreat for one wounded by life, thirsting for solitude
and passing there secret hours in the midst of loved books; in fact, the
discreet dwelling of a poor teacher who had collected some choice
_bibelots_ that she had found by chance. Rosas there felt himself
surrounded by perfect virtue, amid the salvage of a happier past.
Marianne thus became what he imagined her to be, superior to her lot,
living an intellectual life, consoling herself for the mortification of
existence and the hideous experiences of life by poet's dreams, in
building for herself in Paris itself a sort of Thebais, where she was
finally free and mistress of herself and where, when she was sad, she
was not compelled to wear a mask or a false smile, and was free from all
pretended gaiety. And she was so often sad!

She had occasionally mentioned to Rosas the assumed name under which she
lived at that place.

"Mademoiselle Robert!"

He had manifested surprise thereat.

"Yes, I do not wish them to know anything of me, not even my name. You
should understand the necessity that certain minds have for repose and
forgetfulness. Did not one of your sovereigns take his repose lying in
his coffin? Well! I envy him and when I have pushed the bolt of my
little room in Rue Cuvier, I tremble with delight, just as if I felt my
heart beating in a coffin. Do not tell any one. They would desire to
know and see. People are so curious and so stupid!"

Marianne now seemed to be still more strange and seductive to Rosas. All
this romantic conduct, commonplace as it was, with which she surrounded
herself, exalted her in the estimation of the duke. She became in that
little chamber where she was simply Mademoiselle Robert, a hundred times
more charming and attractive to him than any problem: a veritable
Parisian sphinx.

She was not his mistress. He loved her too deeply, with a holy,
respectful passion, to take her hastily, as by chance, and Marianne was
too skilful to risk any imprudent act, well-knowing that if she yielded
too quickly, it would not be a woman who would fall into the duke's
arms, but an idol that descended from its pedestal.

In the silence of the old house in the deserted quarter, they held
conversations in the course of which Rosas freely abandoned himself, and
through which she gained every day a more intimate knowledge of the
character of that man who was so different from those who hitherto had
sought her for pleasure.

Thus, the v