s humble
confidant, admired Lucien in the Rue du Minage, and pulled him to pieces
everywhere else. Nais had gradually given him _les petites entrees_, in
the language of the court, for the lady no longer mistrusted her elderly
admirer; but Chatelet had taken too much for granted--love was still in
the Platonic stage, to the great despair of Louise and Lucien.

There are, for that matter, love affairs which start with a good or a
bad beginning, as you prefer to take it. Two creatures launch into the
tactics of sentiment; they talk when they should be acting, and skirmish
in the open instead of settling down to a siege. And so they grow tired
of one another, expend their longings in empty space; and, having time
for reflection, come to their own conclusions about each other. Many a
passion that has taken the field in gorgeous array, with colors flying
and an ardor fit to turn the world upside down, has turned home again
without a victory, inglorious and crestfallen, cutting but a foolish
figure after these vain alarums and excursions. Such mishaps are
sometimes due to the diffidence of youth, sometimes to the demurs of an
inexperienced woman, for old players at this game seldom end in a fiasco
of this kind.

Provincial life, moreover, is singularly well calculated to keep desire
unsatisfied and maintain a lover's arguments on the intellectual plane,
while, at the same time, the very obstacles placed in the way of the
sweet intercourse which binds lovers so closely each to each, hurry
ardent souls on towards extreme measures. A system of espionage of the
most minute and intricate kind underlies provincial life; every house is
transparent, the solace of close friendships which break no moral law is
scarcely allowed; and such outrageously scandalous constructions are put
upon the most innocent human intercourse, that many a woman's character
is taken away without cause. One here and there, weighed down by her
unmerited punishment, will regret that she has never known to the full
the forbidden felicity for which she is suffering. The world, which
blames and criticises with a superficial knowledge of the patent facts
in which a long inward struggle ends, is in reality a prime agent in
bringing such scandals about; and those whose voices are loudest in
condemnation of the alleged misconduct of some slandered woman never
give a thought to the immediate provocation of the overt step. That
step many a woman only takes after she h