an instinctive aversion for men who are devoted to an absorbing occupation; in spite of superiority, they are all women in the matter of encroachment.  Lousteau, a poet and journalist, and a libertine with a veneer of misanthropy, had that tinsel of the intellect, and led the half-idle life that attracts women.  The blunt good sense and keen insight of the really great man weighed upon Dinah, who would not confess her own smallness even to herself.  She said in her mind—­“The doctor is perhaps the better man, but I do not like him.”

Then, again, she reflected on his professional duties, wondering whether a woman could ever be anything but a subject to a medical man, who saw so many subjects in the course of a day’s work.  The first sentence of the aphorism written by Bianchon in her album was a medical observation striking so directly at woman, that Dinah could not fail to be hit by it.  And then Bianchon was leaving on the morrow; his practice required his return.  What woman, short of having Cupid’s mythological dart in her heart, could decide in so short a time?

These little things, which lead to such great catastrophes—­having been seen in a mass by Bianchon, he pronounced the verdict he had come to as to Madame de la Baudraye in a few words to Lousteau, to the journalist’s great amazement.

While the two friends stood talking together, a storm was gathering in the Sancerre circle, who could not in the least understand Lousteau’s paraphrases and commentaries, and who vented it on their hostess.  Far from finding in his talk the romance which the Public Prosecutor, the Sous-prefet, the Presiding Judge, and his deputy, Lebas, had discovered there—­to say nothing of Monsieur de la Baudraye and Dinah —­the ladies now gathered round the tea-table, took the matter as a practical joke, and accused the Muse of Sancerre of having a finger in it.  They had all looked forward to a delightful evening, and had all strained in vain every faculty of their mind.  Nothing makes provincial folks so angry as the notion of having been a laughing-stock for Paris folks.

Madame Piedefer left the table to say to her daughter, “Do go and talk to the ladies; they are quite annoyed by your behavior.”

Lousteau could not fail to see Dinah’s great superiority over the best women of Sancerre; she was better dressed, her movements were graceful, her complexion was exquisitely white by candlelight—­in short, she stood out against this background of old faces, shy and ill-dressed girls, like a queen in the midst of her court.  Visions of Paris faded from his brain; Lousteau was accepting the provincial surroundings; and while he had too much imagination to remain unimpressed by the royal splendor of this chateau, the beautiful carvings, and the antique beauty of the rooms, he had also too much experience to overlook the value of the personality which completed this gem of the Renaissance.  So by the time the visitors