life. He did not ask whether the Duchess might not change,
whether her love might not last. No, for he had faith. Without
that virtue there is no future for Christianity, and perhaps it
is even more necessary to society. A conception of life as
feeling occurred to him for the first time; hitherto he had lived
by action, the most strenuous exertion of human energies, the
physical devotion, as it may be called, of the soldier.

Next day M. de Montriveau went early in the direction of the
Faubourg Saint-Germain. He had made an appointment at a house
not far from the Hotel de Langeais; and the business over, he
went thither as if to his own home. The General's companion
chanced to be a man for whom he felt a kind of repulsion whenever
he met him in other houses. This was the Marquis de
Ronquerolles, whose reputation had grown so great in Paris
boudoirs. He was witty, clever, and what was more--courageous;
he set the fashion to all the young men in Paris. As a man of
gallantry, his success and experience were equally matters of
envy; and neither fortune nor birth was wanting in his case,
qualifications which add such lustre in Paris to a reputation as
a leader of fashion.

"Where are you going?" asked M. de Ronquerolles.

"To Mme de Langeais'."

"Ah, true. I forgot that you had allowed her to lime you. You
are wasting your affections on her when they might be much better
employed elsewhere. I could have told you of half a score of
women in the financial world, any one of them a thousand times