Lousteau could produce in Dinah the acute agitation which may be compared to magnetism, that upsets every power of the mind and body, and overcomes every instinct of resistance in a woman.  A look from him, or his hand laid on hers, reduced her to implicit obedience.  A kind word or a smile wreathed the poor woman’s soul with flowers; a fond look elated, a cold look depressed her.  When she walked, taking his arm and keeping step with him in the street or on the boulevard, she was so entirely absorbed in him that she lost all sense of herself.  Fascinated by this fellow’s wit, magnetized by his airs, his vices were but trivial defects in her eyes.  She loved the puffs of cigar smoke that the wind brought into her room from the garden; she went to inhale them, and made no wry faces, hiding herself to enjoy them.  She hated the publisher or the newspaper editor who refused Lousteau money on the ground of the enormous advances he had had already.  She deluded herself so far as to believe that her bohemian was writing a novel, for which the payment was to come, instead of working off a debt long since incurred.

This, no doubt, is true love, and includes every mode of loving; the love of the heart and of the head—­passion, caprice, and taste—­to accept Beyle’s definitions.  Didine loved him so wholly, that in certain moments when her critical judgment, just by nature, and constantly exercised since she had lived in Paris, compelled her to read to the bottom of Lousteau’s soul, sense was still too much for reason, and suggested excuses.

“And what am I?” she replied.  “A woman who has put herself outside the pale.  Since I have sacrificed all a woman’s honor, why should you not sacrifice to me some of a man’s honor?  Do we not live outside the limits of social conventionality?  Why not accept from me what Nathan can accept from Florine?  We will square accounts when we part, and only death can part us—­you know.  My happiness is your honor, Etienne, as my constancy and your happiness are mine.  If I fail to make you happy, all is at an end.  If I cause you a pang, condemn me.

“Our debts are paid; we have ten thousand francs a year, and between us we can certainly make eight thousand francs a year—­I will write theatrical articles.—­With fifteen hundred francs a month we shall be as rich as Rothschild.—­Be quite easy.  I will have some lovely dresses, and give you every day some gratified vanity, as on the first night of Nathan’s play—­”

“And what about your mother, who goes to Mass every day, and wants to bring a priest to the house and make you give up this way of life?”

“Every one has a pet vice.  You smoke, she preaches at me, poor woman!  But she takes great care of the children, she takes them out, she is absolutely devoted, and idolizes me.  Would you hinder her from crying?”

“What will be thought of me?”

“But we do not live for the world!” cried she, raising Etienne and making him sit by her.  “Besides, we shall be married some day—­we have the risks of a sea voyage——­”