on the stretch to invent new compliments which shall seem neither
common nor far-fetched. All women do not succeed in this. It is no
surprise, therefore, to find a young woman who entered fashionable
society fresh and healthy, faded and worn out at the end of three
years. Six months spent in the country will hardly heal the wounds of
the winter. We hear continually, in these days, of mysterious
ailments,--gastritis, and so forth,--ills unknown to women when they
busied themselves about their households. In the olden time women only
appeared in the world at intervals; now they are always on the scene.
Clementine found she had to struggle for her supremacy. She was cited,
and that alone brought jealousies; and the care and watchfulness
exacted by this contest with her rivals left little time even to love
her husband. Paz might well be forgotten. Nevertheless, in the month
of May, as she drove home from the Bois, just before she left Paris
for Ronquerolles, her uncle's estate in Burgundy, she noticed
Thaddeus, elegantly dressed, sauntering on one of the side-paths of
the Champs-Elysees, in the seventh heaven of delight at seeing his
beautiful countess in her elegant carriage with its spirited horses
and sparkling liveries,--in short, his beloved family the admired of
all.

"There's the captain," she said to her husband.

"He's happy!" said Adam. "This is his delight. He knows there's no
equipage more elegant than ours, and he is rejoicing to think that
some people envy it. Have you only just noticed him? I see him there
nearly every day."

"I wonder what he is thinking about now," said Clementine.