occupations, other ends in life than their own. When a lover has
vanquished the Lernean hydra in order to pay them a visit he has no
merit in their eyes; they are only grateful to him for the pleasure he
gives; they neither know nor care what it costs. Raoul became aware as
he returned from this visit how difficult it would be to hold the
reins of a love-affair in society, the ten-horsed chariot of
journalism, his dramas on the stage, and his generally involved
affairs.

"The paper will be wretched to-night," he thought, as he walked away.
"No article of mine, and only the second number, too!"

Madame Felix de Vandenesse drove three times to the Bois de Boulogne
without finding Raoul; the third time she came back anxious and
uneasy. The fact was that Nathan did not choose to show himself in the
Bois until he could go there as a prince of the press. He employed a
whole week in searching for horses, a phantom and a suitable tiger,
and in convincing his partners of the necessity of saving time so
precious to them, and therefore of charging his equipage to the costs
of the journal. His associates, Massol and du Tillet agreed to this so
readily that he really believed them the best fellows in the world.
Without this help, however, life would have been simply impossible to
Raoul; as it was, it became so irksome that many men, even those of
the strongest constitutions, could not have borne it. A violent and
successful passion takes a great deal of space in an ordinary life;
but when it is connected with a woman in the social position of Madame
de Vandenesse it sucks the life out of a man as busy as Raoul. Here is
a list of the obligations his passion imposed upon him.

Every day, or nearly every day, he was obliged to be on horseback in