love, but only excited his fancy (the fancy of twenty-two), had her image
always retained a pleasant and grateful hue; it was blended with no deep
sorrow, no stern regret, no dark remorse, no haunting shame.

They met again. Madame de Ventadour was still beautiful, and still
admired,--perhaps more admired than ever; for to the great, fashion and
celebrity bring a second and yet more popular youth. But Maltravers, if
rejoiced to see how gently Time had dealt with the fair Frenchwoman, was
yet more pleased to read in her fine features a more serene and contented
expression than they had formerly worn. Valerie de Ventadour had
preceded her younger admirer through the "MYSTERIES of LIFE;" she had
learned the real objects of being; she distinguished between the Actual
and the Visionary, the Shadow and the Substance; she had acquired content
for the present, and looked with quiet hope towards the future. Her
character was still spotless; or rather, every year of temptation and
trial had given it a fairer lustre. Love, that might have ruined, being
once subdued, preserved her from all after danger. The first meeting
between Maltravers and Valerie was, it is true, one of some embarrassment
and reserve: not so the second. They did but once, and that slightly,
recur to the past, and from that moment, as by a tacit understanding,
true friendship between them dated. Neither felt mortified to see that
an illusion had passed away,--they were no longer the same in each
other's eyes. Both might be improved, and were so; but the Valerie and
the Ernest of Naples were as things dead and gone! Perhaps Valerie's
heart was even more reconciled to the cure of its soft and luxurious
malady by the renewal of their acquaintance. The mature and experienced
reasoner, in whom enthusiasm had undergone its usual change, with the
calm brow and commanding aspect of sober manhood, was a being so
different from the romantic boy, new to the actual world of civilized
toils and pleasures, fresh from the adventures of Eastern wanderings, and