Ah, she would not have interrupted his studies; she would have encouraged them; she would never have urged him to accumulate wealth to expend it in social diversions; while Cesarine fretted at her splendid voice going to waste in this solitude—­the house in the suburbs where no company comes.

She dreamed of holding a Liberty Hall, where her fancies might have unlicensed play and her freaks have free course.  While gliding about the quiet house in a neat dress, she imagined herself in robes almost regal, with golden ornaments, diamonds and the pearls and turquoises which suited her fairness.  What if the gems were set in impurities?

Alas! perfect as a husband, denying her nothing which his limited means allowed, Felix had not once an inclination to tread beside her the ballroom floor, the reception hall marbles, and the flower-strewn path at the aristocratic charity bazaar.  Yet he felt firmly assured that he was destined to a great fortune.  He saw the gleam of it although he could not trace the beam to its source, too dazzling.  But she had no faith in him, she did not understand his value, and from the time of his certainty that they were not the unit of two hearts to which happiness accrues and where it abides, he merely resigned himself to the irremediable grief.  Having vainly tried to make of her a worthy wife, and seeing that motherhood had not saved her—­earthly redemption though it is of her sex—­he could only watch her and prevent her resuming that orbit which would no doubt end badly, as her race offered too many examples.

On one occasion, fatigued with watching that she did not take a faulty step, he had written to Russia to see if she would find a harbor there, but the answer came from her father and sealed up that outlet.  Her elopement had caused her mother fatal sorrow, and her father said plainly that he regarded her as dead.  Though she came to his gates, begging her bread, he would bid his janitor drive her away.  Her mother had been a good wife, but her grandmother had extorted a mint of money and, after all, nearly ruined him in the good graces of his Emperor out of spite, from her blackmail failing at last to remunerate her.

Since in Cesarine, Felix found no intelligent and sympathetic companion, he took into intimacy a kind of apprentice whom he had literally picked up on the road.  A slender lad of southern origin, whom a band of vagrants, making for the sea to embark to South America, had cast off to die in the ditch.  Clemenceau gave him shelter, nursed him—­for his wife would have nothing to do with a beggar—­and to cover the hospitality and soothe the Italian’s pride, paid him liberally to be his model.  He was named Antonino and might have been a descendant of the Emperor from his lofty features, burning eye and fine sentiments.  Healed, able to resume his journey and offered a loan to make it smooth, he effusively uttered a declaration of gratitude and devotion, and vowed to remain the slave of the man who had saved him from a miserable death.