Our servants have such an easy time, that never once since we were married have we had to reprimand any of them.  When questioned about us, they have had wit enough to draw on their imaginations, and have given us out as the companion and secretary of a lady and gentleman supposed to be traveling.  They never go out without asking permission, which they know will not be refused; they are contented too, and see plainly that it will be their own fault if there is a change for the worse.  The gardeners are allowed to sell the surplus of our fruits and vegetables.  The dairymaid does the same with the milk, the cream, and the fresh butter, on condition that the best of the produce is reserved for us.  They are well pleased with their profits, and we are delighted with an abundance which no money and no ingenuity can procure in that terrible Paris, where it costs a hundred francs to produce a single fine peach.

All this is not without its meaning, my dear.  I wish to fill the place of society to my husband; now society is amusing, and therefore his solitude must not be allowed to pall on him.  I believed myself jealous in the old days, when I merely allowed myself to be loved; now I know real jealousy, the jealousy of the lover.  A single indifferent glance unnerves me.  From time to time I say to myself, “Suppose he ceased to love me!” And a shudder goes through me.  I tremble before him, as the Christian before his God.

Alas!  Renee, I am still without a child.  The time will surely come—­it must come—­when our hermitage will need a father’s and a mother’s care to brighten it, when we shall both pine to see the little frocks and pelisses, the brown or golden heads, leaping, running through our shrubberies and flowery paths.  Oh! it is a cruel jest of Nature’s, a flowering tree that bears no fruit.  The thought of your lovely children goes through me like a knife.  My life has grown narrower, while yours has expanded and shed its rays afar.  The passion of love is essentially selfish, while motherhood widens the circle of our feelings.  How well I felt this difference when I read your kind, tender letter!  To see you thus living in three hearts roused my envy.  Yes, you are happy; you have had wisdom to obey the laws of social life, whilst I stand outside, an alien.

Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a woman for the loss of her beauty.  I shall soon be thirty, and at that age the dirge within begins.  What though I am still beautiful, the limits of my woman’s reign are none the less in sight.  When they are reached, what then?  I shall be forty before he is; I shall be old while he is still young.  When this thought goes to my heart, I lie at his feet for an hour at a time, making him swear to tell me instantly if ever he feels his love diminishing.

But he is a child.  He swears, as though the mere suggestion were an absurdity, and he is so beautiful that—­Renee, you understand—­I believe him.