treasure she found in her soul! To be the wife of a genius, to share
his glory! What ravages must such a vision make in the heart of a girl
brought up among such a family! What hopes must it raise in a young
creature who, in the midst of sordid elements, had pined for a life of
elegance! A sunbeam had fallen into the prison. Augustine was suddenly
in love. So many of her feelings were soothed that she succumbed
without reflection. At eighteen does not love hold a prism between the
world and the eyes of a young girl? She was incapable of suspecting
the hard facts which result from the union of a loving woman with a
man of imagination, and she believed herself called to make him happy,
not seeing any disparity between herself and him. To her the future
would be as the present. When, next day, her father and mother
returned from the Salon, their dejected faces proclaimed some
disappointment. In the first place, the painter had removed the two
pictures; and then Madame Guillaume had lost her cashmere shawl. But
the news that the pictures had disappeared from the walls since her
visit revealed to Augustine a delicacy of sentiment which a woman can
always appreciate, even by instinct.

On the morning when, on his way home from a ball, Theodore de
Sommervieux--for this was the name which fame had stamped on
Augustine's heart--had been squirted on by the apprentices while
awaiting the appearance of his artless little friend, who certainly
did not know that he was there, the lovers had seen each other for the
fourth time only since their meeting at the Salon. The difficulties
which the rule of the house placed in the way of the painter's ardent
nature gave added violence to his passion for Augustine.

How could he get near to a young girl seated in a counting-house
between two such women as Mademoiselle Virginie and Madame Guillaume?