into her soul certain ardent talk of love, the "mot d'enigme" which
life propounds to woman, the grand passion, as Madame de Stael called
it,--preaching by example. When the countess asked naively, in a small
and select circle of these friends, what difference there was between
a lover and a husband, all those who wished evil to Felix took care to
reply in a way to pique her curiosity, or fire her imagination, or
touch her heart, or interest her mind.

"Oh! my dear, we vegetate with a husband, but we live with a lover,"
said her sister-in-law, the marquise.

"Marriage, my dear, is our purgatory; love is paradise," said Lady
Dudley.

"Don't believe her," cried Mademoiselle des Touches; "it is hell."

"But a hell we like," remarked Madame de Rochefide. "There is often
more pleasure in suffering than in happiness; look at the martyrs!"

"With a husband, my dear innocent, we live, as it were, in our own
life; but to love, is to live in the life of another," said the
Marquise d'Espard.

"A lover is forbidden fruit, and that to me, says all!" cried the
pretty Moina de Saint-Heren, laughing.

When she was not at some diplomatic rout, or at a ball given by rich
foreigners, like Lady Dudley or the Princesse Galathionne, the
Comtesse de Vandenesse might be seen, after the Opera, at the houses
of Madame d'Espard, the Marquise de Listomere, Mademoiselle des