Moved by that tear Marie promised to drive daily in the Bois, unless
the weather were extremely bad. This promise gave Raoul more pleasure
than he had found in Florine for the last five years.

"I have so many things to say to you! I suffer from the silence to
which we are condemned--"

The countess looked at him eagerly without replying, and at that
moment Madame d'Espard returned to the room.

"Why didn't you answer de Marsay?" she said as she entered.

"We ought to respect the dead," replied Raoul. "Don't you see that he
is dying? Rastignac is his nurse,--hoping to be put in the will."

The countess pretended to have other visits to pay, and left the
house.

For this quarter of an hour Raoul had sacrificed important interests
and most precious time. Marie was perfectly ignorant of the life of
such men, involved in complicated affairs and burdened with exacting
toil. Women of society are still under the influence of the traditions
of the eighteenth century, in which all positions were definite and
assured. Few women know the harassments in the life of most men who in
these days have a position to make and to maintain, a fame to reach, a
fortune to consolidate. Men of settled wealth and position can now be
counted; old men alone have time to love; young men are rowing, like
Nathan, the galleys of ambition. Women are not yet resigned to this
change of customs; they suppose the same leisure of which they have
too much in those who have none; they cannot imagine other