them, she would willingly have painted from morning till night; but the
connections that Saniel had made did not leave her this liberty. Through
Claudet they made many acquaintances and accepted invitations that placed
her under social obligations, so that almost every day she had a visit to
pay, a funeral or a marriage to attend, besides an occasional charity
fair, and her own day at home, when she listened for three hours to
feminine gossip of no interest to her.

As for him, what pleasure could he take in dressing after a hard day's
work to go to a reception? He, son of a peasant, and a peasant himself
in so many ways, who formerly understood nothing of fashionable life and
felt only contempt for it, finding it as dull as it was ridiculous.

She tried to find a cause for this change, and when lightly, in a
roundabout way, she brought him to explain himself, she could only draw
one answer from him, which was no answer to her:

"We must be of the world."

Why did he care so much about society? Was it because she was the sister
of a criminal that he wished to take her everywhere and make people
receive her? She understood this up to a certain point, although the
part he made her play was the most cruel that he could give her, and
entirely contrary to what she would have chosen if she had been free.

But this was all there was in his desire to be of the world. Because he
had married her he was not the brother of a criminal, and on close
observation it might be seen that all he desired of these persons in high
places whom he sought was their consideration, a part of their importance
and honor. But he did not need this; he was some one by himself. The