of reckless prodigality? Clementine, brought up by a spendthrift
father, knew nothing of the management of a household which the women
of the present day, however rich or noble they are, are often
compelled to undertake themselves. How few, in these days, keep a
steward. Adam, on the other hand, son of one of the great Polish lords
who let themselves be preyed on by the Jews, and are wholly incapable
of managing even the wreck of their vast fortunes (for fortunes are
vast in Poland), was not of a nature to check his own fancies or those
of his wife. Left to himself he would probably have been ruined before
his marriage. Paz had prevented him from gambling at the Bourse, and
that says all.

Under these circumstances, Thaddeus, feeling that he loved Clementine
in spite of himself, had not the resource of leaving the house and
travelling in other lands to forget his passion. Gratitude, the
key-note of his life, held him bound to that household where he alone
could look after the affairs of the heedless owners. The long absence
of Adam and Clementine had given him peace. But the countess had
returned more lovely than ever, enjoying the freedom which marriage
brings to a Parisian woman, displaying the graces of a young wife and
the nameless attraction she gains from the happiness, or the
independence, bestowed upon her by a young man as trustful, as
chivalric, and as much in love as Adam. To know that he was the pivot
on which the splendor the household depended, to see Clementine when
she got out of her carriage on returning from some fete, or got into
it in the morning when she took her drive, to meet her on the
boulevards in her pretty equipage, looking like a flower in a whorl of
leaves, inspired poor Thaddeus with mysterious delights, which glowed
in the depths of his heart but gave no signs upon his face.