The Count gave her in reality, under these circumstances, a tete-a-tete of a few minutes after dinner; but near nine o’clock he would leave her with perfect tranquillity.  Perhaps an hour later she would receive a little packet of bonbons, or a pretty basket of choice fruit, that would permit her to pass the evening as she might.  These little gifts she sometimes divided with her neighbor, Madame Jaubert; sometimes with M. de Vautrot, secretary to her husband.

This M. de Vautrot, for whom she had at first conceived an aversion, was gradually getting into her good graces.  In the absence of her husband she always found him at hand; and referred to him for many little details, such as addresses, invitations, the selection of books and the purchase of furniture.  From this came a certain familiarity; she began to call him Vautrot, or “My good Vautrot,” while he zealously performed all her little commissions.  He manifested for her a great deal of respectful attention, and even refrained from indulging in the sceptical sneers which he knew displeased her.  Happy to witness this reform and to testify her gratitude, she invited him to remain on two or three evenings when he came to take his leave, and talked with him of books and the theatres.

When her mourning kept her at home, M. de Camors passed the two first evenings with her until ten o’clock.  But this effort fatigued him, and the poor young woman, who had already erected an edifice for the future on this frail basis, had the mortification of observing that on the third evening he had resumed his bachelor habits.

This was a great blow to her, and her sadness became greater than it had been up to that time; so much so in fact, that solitude was almost unbearable.  She had hardly been long enough in Paris to form intimacies.  Madame Jaubert came to her friend as often as she could; but in the intervals the Countess adopted the habit of retaining Vautrot, or even of sending for him.  Camors himself, three fourths of the time, would bring him in before going out in the evening.

“I bring you Vautrot, my dear,” he would say, “and Shakespeare.  You can read him together.”

Vautrot read well; and though his heavy declamatory style frequently annoyed the Countess, she thus managed to kill many a long evening, while waiting the expected visit of Madame de Tecle.  But Vautrot, whenever he looked at her, wore such a sympathetic air and seemed so mortified when she did not invite him to stay, that, even when wearied of him, she frequently did so.

About the end of the month of April, M. Vautrot was alone with the Countess de Camors about ten o’clock in the evening.  They were reading Goethe’s Faust, which she had never before heard.  This reading seemed to interest the young woman more than usual, and with her eyes fixed on the reader, she listened to it with rapt attention.  She was not alone fascinated by the work, but—­as is frequently the case-she traced her own thoughts and her own history in the fiction of the poet.