d'Arthez as much imagination in love as there was in his written
style, she thought it wise to bring him up at once to the highest
pitch of passion and belief.

She withdrew her hand hastily, with a magnificent movement full of
varied emotions. If she had said in words: "Stop, or I shall die," she
could not have spoken more plainly. She remained for a moment with her
eyes in d'Arthez's eyes, expressing in that one glance happiness,
prudery, fear, confidence, languor, a vague longing, and virgin
modesty. She was twenty years old! but remember, she had prepared for
this hour of comic falsehood by the choicest art of dress; she was
there in her armchair like a flower, ready to blossom at the first
kiss of sunshine. True or false, she intoxicated Daniel.

It if is permissible to risk a personal opinion we must avow that it
would be delightful to be thus deceived for a good long time.
Certainly Talma on the stage was often above and beyond nature, but
the Princesse de Cadignan is the greatest true comedian of our day.
Nothing was wanting to this woman but an attentive audience.
Unfortunately, at epochs perturbed by political storms, women
disappear like water-lilies which need a cloudless sky and balmy
zephyrs to spread their bloom to our enraptured eyes.

The hour had come; Diane was now to entangle that great man in the
inextricable meshes of a romance carefully prepared, to which he was
fated to listen as the neophyte of early Christian times listened to
the epistles of an apostle.

"My friend," began Diane, "my mother, who still lives at Uxelles,
married me in 1814, when I was seventeen years old (you see how old I