was totally ignorant to what his imaginary grandeur bound him. Women
will not suffer their idol to step down from his pedestal. They do not
forgive the slightest pettiness in a god. Marie was far from knowing
the solution to the riddle given by Raoul to his friends at Very's.
The struggle of this writer, risen from the lower classes, had cost
him the ten first years of his youth; and now in the days of his
success he longed to be loved by one of the queens of the great world.
Vanity, without which, as Champfort says, love would be but a feeble
thing, sustained his passion and increased it day by day.

"Can you swear to me," said Marie, "that you belong and will never
belong to any other woman?"

"There is neither time in my life nor place in my heart for any other
woman," replied Raoul, not thinking that he told a lie, so little did
he value Florine.

"I believe you," she said.

When they reached the alley where their carriages were waiting, Marie
dropped Raoul's arm, and the young man assumed a respectful and
distant attitude as if he had just met her; he accompanied her, with
his hat off, to her carriage, then he followed her by the Avenue
Charles X., breathing in, with satisfaction, the very dust her caleche
raised.

In spite of Marie's high renunciations, Raoul continued to follow her
everywhere; he adored the air of mingled pleasure and displeasure with
which she scolded him for wasting his precious time. She took
direction of his labors, she gave him formal orders on the employment