sed, but
in such humble and timid terms! "He knew how unworthy he was of her. He
understood all the regret she would feel, in exchanging her illustrious
name for his, so unknown and insignificant." And a thousand other
artless phrases in the same style. In reality, the lady was indeed very
much flattered by her conquest; however, she played the comedy of a
broken heart, and assumed the disdainful, wearied airs of a woman whose
life is ended without hopes of renewal. She, who had never in her life
been so quiet and comfortable as since the death of her great man, she
actually found tears with which to mourn for him, and an enthusiastic
ardour in speaking of him. This, of course, only inflamed her youthful
adorer the more and made him more eloquent and persuasive.

In short, this severe widowhood ended in a marriage; but the widow did
not abdicate, and remained--although married--more than ever the widow
of a great man; well knowing that herein lay, in the eyes of her second
husband, her real prestige. As she felt herself much older than he, to
prevent his perceiving it, she overwhelmed him with her disdain, with
a kind of vague pity, and unexpressed and offensive regret at her
condescending marriage. However, he was not wounded by it, quite the
contrary. He was so convinced of his inferiority and thought it so
natural that the memory of such a man should reign despotically in her
heart! In order the better to maintain in him this humble attitude, she
would at times read over with him the letters the great man had
written to her when he was courting her. This return towards the past
rejuvenated her some fifteen years, lent her the assurance of a handsome
and beloved woman, seen through all the wild love and delightful
exaggeration of written passion. That she had since then changed her
young husband cared little, loving her on the faith of another, and
drawing therefrom I know not what strange kind of vanity. It seemed
to him that these passionate appeals added to his own, and that he
inherited a whole past of love.

A strange couple indeed! It was in society, however, that they presented
the most curious spectacle. I sometimes caught sight of them at the
theatre. No one would have recognized the timid and shy young woman, who
formerly accompanied the _maestro_, lost in the gigantic shadow he cast
around him. Now, seated upright in the front of the box, she displayed
herself, attracting all eyes by the pride of her own g