The figure of the Vicomtesse de Beauseant rose up suddenly before him with gracious thronging associations.  She was a new world for him, a world of fears and hopes, a world to fight for and to conquer.  Inevitably he felt the contrast between this vision and the human beings in the shabby room; and then, in truth, she was a woman; what woman had he seen so far in this dull, little world, where calculation replaced thought and feeling, where courtesy was a cut-and-dried formality, and ideas of the very simplest were too alarming to be received or to pass current?  The sound of Mme. de Beauseant’s name revived a young man’s dreams and wakened urgent desires that had lain dormant for a little.

Gaston de Nueil was absent-minded and preoccupied for the rest of the evening.  He was pondering how he might gain access to Mme. de Beauseant, and truly it was no very easy matter.  She was believed to be extremely clever.  But if men and women of parts may be captivated by something subtle or eccentric, they are also exacting, and can read all that lies below the surface; and after the first step has been taken, the chances of failure and success in the difficult task of pleasing them are about even.  In this particular case, moreover, the Vicomtesse, besides the pride of her position, had all the dignity of her name.  Her utter seclusion was the least of the barriers raised between her and the world.  For which reasons it was well-nigh impossible that a stranger, however well born, could hope for admittance; and yet, the next morning found M. de Nueil taking his walks abroad in the direction of Courcelles, a dupe of illusions natural at his age.  Several times he made the circuit of the garden walls, looking earnestly through every gap at the closed shutters or open windows, hoping for some romantic chance, on which he founded schemes for introducing himself into this unknown lady’s presence, without a thought of their impracticability.  Morning after morning was spent in this way to mighty purpose; but with each day’s walk, that vision of a woman living apart from the world, of love’s martyr buried in solitude, loomed larger in his thoughts, and was enshrined in his soul.  So Gaston de Nueil walked under the walls of Courcelles, and some gardener’s heavy footstep would set his heart beating high with hope.

He thought of writing to Mme. de Beauseant, but on mature consideration, what can you say to a woman whom you have never seen, a complete stranger?  And Gaston had little self-confidence.  Like most young persons with a plentiful crop of illusions still standing, he dreaded the mortifying contempt of silence more than death itself, and shuddered at the thought of sending his first tender epistle forth to face so many chances of being thrown on the fire.  He was distracted by innumerable conflicting ideas.  But by dint of inventing chimeras, weaving romances, and cudgeling his brains, he hit at last upon one of