should not offend him. No curious looks, and no
questions. But this was not always easy, so she asked leave to assist him
in his work, and sometimes drew in larger size the designs that he made
for his microscopical studies. In this way the time passed rapidly. If he
were but willing to pass the evening hours in this sweet intimacy,
without a word about going out, how happy she would be! But he never
forgot the hour.

"Allons," he said, interrupting himself, "we must go."

She had never dared to ask the true reason for this "must."

CHAPTER XLI

A TROUBLED SOUL

If she dared not frankly ask him this question: Why must we go out? any
more than the others: Why is it proper that I should go to mass to be
seen? Why should I wear gowns that ruin us? Why do you accept decorations
that are valueless in your eyes? Why do you seek the society of men who
have no merit but what they derive from their official position or from
their fortune? Why do we take upon ourselves social duties that weary
both of us, instead of remaining together in a tender and intelligent
intimacy that is sweet to us both? she could not ask herself.

They all appertained to this order of ideas, that she, without doubt,
found explained them: disposition of character; the exactions of an
ambition in haste to realize its desires; susceptibility or overshadowing
pride; but there were others founded on observation or memory, having no
connection with those, or so it seemed to her.

She began to know her husband the day following their marriage, having
believed that he was always such as he revealed himself to her; but this
was not the case, and the man she had loved was so unlike the man whose
wife she had become, that it might almost be thought there were two.

To tell the truth, it was not marriage that made the change in his temper
that distressed her; but it was not less characteristic by that, that it
dated back to a period anterior to this marriage.

She remembered the commencement with a clearness that left no place for
doubt or hesitation; it was at the time when pursued by creditors he
entered into relations with Caffie. For the first time he, always so
strong that she believed him above weakness, had had a moment of
discouragement on announcing that he would probably be obliged to leave
Paris; but this depression had neither the anger nor weakness that he had
since shown. It was the natural sadness of a man who saw his future
destroyed