“Farewell, dear Claire!  It is still I, you see, who, in spite of my delusions and the petty troubles of my life, am the most favorably situated:  for Adolphe is young, and a charming fellow.

“CAROLINE HEURTAUT.”

Claire’s reply contained, among other passages, the following:  “I hope that the indescribable happiness which you enjoy, will continue, thanks to your philosophy.”  Claire, as any intimate female friend would have done, consoled herself for her president by insinuations respecting Adolphe’s prospects and future conduct.

II.  ANOTHER GLANCE AT CHODOREILLE.

(Letter discovered one day in a casket, while she was making me wait a long time and trying to get rid of a hanger-on who could not be made to understand hidden meanings.  I caught cold—­but I got hold of this letter.)

This fatuous note was found on a paper which the notary’s clerks had thought of no importance in the inventory of the estate of M. Ferdinand de Bourgarel, who was mourned of late by politics, arts and amours, and in whom is ended the great Provencal house of Borgarelli; for as is generally known the name Bourgarel is a corruption of Borgarelli just as the French Girardin is the Florentine Gherardini.

An intelligent reader will find little difficulty in placing this letter in its proper epoch in the lives of Adolphe and Caroline.

“My dear Friend: 

“I thought myself lucky indeed to marry an artist as superior in his talent as in his personal attributes, equally great in soul and mind, worldly-wise, and likely to rise by following the public road without being obliged to wander along crooked, doubtful by-paths.  However, you knew Adolphe; you appreciated his worth.  I am loved, he is a father, I idolize our children.  Adolphe is kindness itself to me; I admire and love him.  But, my dear, in this complete happiness lurks a thorn.  The roses upon which I recline have more than one fold.  In the heart of a woman, folds speedily turn to wounds.  These wounds soon bleed, the evil spreads, we suffer, the suffering awakens thoughts, the thoughts swell and change the course of sentiment.

“Ah, my dear, you shall know all about it, though it is a cruel thing to say—­but we live as much by vanity as by love.  To live by love alone, one must dwell somewhere else than in Paris.  What difference would it make to us whether we had only one white percale gown, if the man we love did not see other women dressed differently, more elegantly than we—­women who inspire ideas by their ways, by a multitude of little things which really go to make up great passions?  Vanity, my dear, is cousin-german to jealousy, to that beautiful and noble jealousy which consists in not allowing one’s empire to be invaded, in reigning undisturbed in a soul, and passing one’s life happily in a heart.