bled at
the death of M. de Nocheres, that some zealous man was needed who would
devote himself to the ordering of his house and the management of his
property; and had offered himself for the post. The marquis had very
gladly accepted, being, as we have said, tired by this time of his
solitary home life; and the abbe had brought with him the chevalier, who
followed him like his shadow, and who was no more regarded than if he had
really possessed no body.

The marquise often confessed afterwards that when she first saw these two
men, although their outward aspect was perfectly agreeable, she felt
herself seized by a painful impression, and that the fortune-teller's
prediction of a violent death, which she had so long forgotten, gashed
out like lightning before her eyes. The effect on the two brothers was
not of the same kind: the beauty of the marquise struck them both,
although in different ways. The chevalier was in ecstasies of
admiration, as though before a beautiful statue, but the impression that
she made upon him was that which would have been made by marble, and if
the chevalier had been left to himself the consequences of this
admiration would have been no less harmless. Moreover, the chevalier did
not attempt either to exaggerate or to conceal this impression, and
allowed his sister-in-law to see in what manner she struck him. The
abbe, on the contrary, was seized at first sight with a deep and violent
desire to possess this woman--the most beautiful whom he had ever met;
but being as perfectly capable of mastering his sensations as the
chevalier was incapable, he merely allowed such words of compliment to
escape him as weigh neither with him who utters nor her who hears them;
and yet, before the close of this first interview, the abbe had decided
in his irrevocable will that this woman should be his.

As for the marquise, although the impression produced by her two
brothers-in-law could never be entirely effaced, the wit of the abbe, to
which he gave, with amazing facility, whatever turn he chose, and the
complete nullity of the chevalier brought her to certain feelings of less
repulsion towards them: for indeed the marquise had one of those souls
which never suspect evil, as long as it will take the trouble to assume
any veil at all of seeming, and which only recognise it with regret when
it resumes its true shape.

Meanwhile the arrival of these two new inmates soon spread a little more
life and gaiet