t the
connections that Saniel had made did not leave her this liberty. Through
Claudet they made many acquaintances and accepted invitations that
placed her under social obligations, so that almost every day she had a
visit to pay, a funeral or a marriage to attend, besides an occasional
charity fair, and her own day at home, when she listened for three hours
to feminine gossip of no interest to her.

As for him, what pleasure could he take in dressing after a hard day's
work to go to a reception? He, son of a peasant, and a peasant himself
in so many ways, who formerly understood nothing of fashionable life and
felt only contempt for it, finding it as dull as it was ridiculous.

She tried to find a cause for this change, and when lightly, in a
roundabout way, she brought him to explain himself, she could only draw
one answer from him, which was no answer to her:

"We must be of the world."

Why did he care so much about society? Was it because she was the sister
of a criminal that he wished to take her everywhere and make people
receive her? She understood this up to a certain point, although the
part he made her play was the most cruel that he could give her, and
entirely contrary to what she would have chosen if she had been free.

But this was all there was in his desire to be of the world. Because
he had married her he was not the brother of a criminal, and on close
observation it might be seen that all he desired of these persons in
high places whom he sought was their consideration, a part of their
importance and honor. But he did not need this; he was some one by
himself. The position that he had made was worthy of his merit. His name
was honored. His future was envied.

And yet, as if he did not realize this, he sought small satisfactions,
unworthy of a serious ambition. One evening she was very much surprised
when he told her that the decoration of a Spanish republic was offered
to him, and although she had formed a habit of watching over her words
she could not help exclaiming:

"What will you do with that?"

"I could not refuse it."

Not only had he not refused it, but he had accepted others, blue, green,
yellow, and tricolored; he wore them in his buttonhole, around his neck,
and on his breast. What good could those decorations do that belittled
him? And how could a man of his merit hasten to obtain the Legion of
Honor before it fell to him naturally?

All this was astonishing, mysterious, and s