to people and things which seemed to me at first very strange and then
very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, of very little importance.
At first I expended a great deal of sorrow and dismay and pity on it
all; but there soon came a time when I began to wonder if it were worth
one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal friendships I've seen
broken, the inconsolable woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities
scrambling to outdo each other, you'd agree with me that tempers like
yours and mine can understand neither such troubles nor such
compensations. A year ago, while I was in the country, a friend of mine
was in despair at the infidelity of her husband; she wrote me a most
dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately to see
her. A week had elapsed, and as I had seen stranger things I thought she
might have recovered her spirits. Not at all; she was still in despair--
but at what? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless conduct of--well
of a lady I'll call Madame de T. You'll imagine of course that Madame de
T. was the lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. Far from
it; he had never seen her. Who then was Madame de T.? Madame de T. was
cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was M. de V.? M. de V. was--well, in
two words again, my friend was cultivating two jealousies at once. I
hardly know what I said to her; something at any rate that she found
unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband
proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I
believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable
companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into
Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree
is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a conscious compromise."

"A conscious compromise!" Longmore expressively repeated. "That's your
whole life."