"The very same," he was told. "She came to Courcelles after the
marriage of the Marquis d'Ajuda; nobody visits her. She has, besides,
too much sense not to see that she is in a false position, so she has
made no attempt to see any one. M. de Champignelles and a few
gentlemen went to call upon her, but she would see no one but M. de
Champignelles, perhaps because he is a connection of the family. They
are related through the Beauseants; the father of the present Vicomte
married a Mlle. de Champignelles of the older branch. But though the
Vicomtesse de Beauseant is supposed to be a descendant of the House of
Burgundy, you can understand that we could not admit a wife separated
from her husband into our society here. We are foolish enough still to
cling to these old-fashioned ideas. There was the less excuse for the
Vicomtesse, because M. de Beauseant is a well-bred man of the world,
who would have been quite ready to listen to reason. But his wife is
quite mad----" and so forth and so forth.

M. de Nueil, still listening to the speaker's voice, gathered nothing
of the sense of the words; his brain was too full of thick-coming
fancies. Fancies? What other name can you give to the alluring charms
of an adventure that tempts the imagination and sets vague hopes
springing up in the soul; to the sense of coming events and mysterious
felicity and fear at hand, while as yet there is no substance of fact
on which these phantoms of caprice can fix and feed? Over these
fancies thought hovers, conceiving impossible projects, giving in the
germ all the joys of love. Perhaps, indeed, all passion is contained
in that thought-germ, as the beauty, and fragrance, and rich color of
the flower is all packed in the seed.

M. de Nueil did not know that Mme. de Beauseant had taken refuge in