and _bourgeois_ Angouleme alike had
looked askance for a long while at this phenomenon of the perfect union
of three persons; but finally the mysterious conjugal trinity appeared
to them so rare and pleasing a spectacle, that if M. du Hautoy had
shown any intention of marrying, he would have been thought monstrously
immoral. Mme. de Senonches, however, had a lady companion, a
goddaughter, and her excessive attachment to this Mlle. de la Haye was
beginning to raise surmises of disquieting mysteries; it was thought,
in spite of some impossible discrepancies in dates, that Francoise de la
Haye bore a striking likeness to Francis du Hautoy.

When "Jacques" was shooting in the neighborhood, people used to inquire
after Francis, and Jacques would discourse on his steward's little
ailments, and talk of his wife in the second place. So curious did this
blindness seem in a man of jealous temper, that his greatest friends
used to draw him out on the topic for the amusement of others who did
not know of the mystery. M. du Hautoy was a finical dandy whose
minute care of himself had degenerated into mincing affectation and
childishness. He took an interest in his cough, his appetite, his
digestion, his night's rest. Zephirine had succeeded in making a
valetudinarian of her factotum; she coddled him and doctored him; she
crammed him with delicate fare, as if he had been a fine lady's lap-dog;
she embroidered waistcoats for him, and pocket-handkerchiefs and cravats
until he became so used to wearing finery that she transformed him into
a kind of Japanese idol. Their understanding was perfect. In season and
out of season Zizine consulted Francis with a look, and Francis seemed
to take his ideas from Zizine's eyes. They frowned and smiled together,
and seemingly took counsel of each other before making the simplest
commonplace remark.

The largest landowner in the neighborhood, a man whom every one envied,
was the Marquis de Pimentel; he and his wife, between them, had an
income of forty thousand livres, and spent their winters in Paris. This
evening they had driven into Angouleme in their caleche, and had brought
their neighbors, the Baron and Baroness de Rastignac and their party,
the Baroness' aunt and daughters, two charming young ladies, penniless
girls who had been carefully brought up, and were dressed in the simple
way that sets off natural loveliness.

These personages, beyond question the first in the company, met with
a re