'clock at night, George Sand took a cab
and drove to the house of Mme. de Musset, to whom she sent up a message
that a lady wished to see her. Mme. de Musset came down, and, finding a
woman alone in a carriage, she entered it. Then George Sand burst forth
in a torrent of sentimental eloquence. She overpowered her lover's
mother, promised to take great care of the delicate youth, and finally
drove away to meet Alfred at the coach-yard.

They started off in the mist, their coach being the thirteenth to leave
the yard; but the two lovers were in a merry mood, and enjoyed
themselves all the way from Paris to Marseilles. By steamer they went
to Leghorn; and finally, in January, 1834, they took an apartment in a
hotel at Venice. What had happened that their arrival in Venice should
be the beginning of a quarrel, no one knows. George Sand has told the
story, and Paul de Musset--Alfred's brother--has told the story, but
each of them has doubtless omitted a large part of the truth.

It is likely that on their long journey each had learned too much of
the other. Thus, Paul de Musset says that George Sand made herself
outrageous by her conversation, telling every one of her mother's
adventures in the army of Italy, including her relations with the
general-in-chief. She also declared that she herself was born within a
month of her parents' wedding-day. Very likely she did say all these
things, whether they were true or not. She had set herself to wage war
against conventional society, and she did everything to shock it.

On the other hand, Alfred de Musset fell ill after having lost ten
thousand francs in a gambling-house. George Sand was not fond of
persons who were ill. She herself was working like a horse, writing
from eight to thirteen hours a day. When Musset collapsed she sent for
a handsome young Italian doctor named Pagello, with whom she had struck
up a casual acquaintance. He finally cured Musset, but he also cured
George Sand of any love for Musset.

Before long she and Pagello were on their way back to Paris, leaving
the poor, fevered, whimpering poet to bite his nails and think
unutterable things. But he ought to have known George Sand. After that,
everybody knew her. They knew just how much she cared when she
professed to care, and when she acted as she acted with Pagello no
earlier lover had any one but himself to blame.

Only sentimentalists can take this story seriously. To them it has a
sort of morbid interes