profound joy, marred only by the evident sadness into which Lincoln's
struggles plunged Florent. Never had she met the eyes of Chapron fixed
upon Maitland with that look of a faithful dog which rejoices in the joy
of its master, or which suffers in his sadness, without enduring, like
Alba Steno, the sensation of a "needle in the heart."

The idolatrous worship of her brother for the painter caused her to
suffer still more as she comprehended, with the infallible perspicacity
of antipathy, the immense dupery. She read the very depths of the souls
of the two old comrades of Beaumont. She knew that in that friendship,
as is almost always the case, one alone gave all to receive in exchange
only the most brutal recognition, that with which a huntsman or a master
gratifies a faithful dog! As for enlightening Florent with regard to
Lincoln's character, she had vainly tried to do so by those fine and
perfidious insinuations in which women excel. She only recognized her
impotence, and myriads of hateful impressions were thus accumulated in
her heart, to be summed up in one of those frenzies of taciturn rancor
which bursts on the first opportunity with terrifying energy. Crime
itself has its laws of development. Between the pretty little girl who
wept on seeing a new toy in her brother's hand and the Lydia Maitland,
forcer of locks, author of anonymous letters, driven by the thirst for
vengeance, even to villainy, no dramatic revolution of character had
taken place. The logical succession of days had sufficed.

The occasion to gratify that deep and mortal longing to touch Lincoln on
some point truly sensitive, how often Lydia had sought it in vain, before
Madame Steno obtained an ascendancy over the painter. She had been
reduced by it to those meannesses of feminine animosity to manage, as if
accidentally, that her husband might read all the disagreeable articles
written about his paintings, innocently to praise before him the rivals