between husband and wife! The Countess was a little woman, with a
flat, graceful figure and enchanting shape; so fragile, so dainty
was she, that you would have feared to break some bone if you so
much as touched her. She wore a white muslin dress, a
rose-colored sash, and rose-colored ribbons in the pretty cap on
her head; her chemisette was moulded so deliciously by her
shoulders and the loveliest rounded contours, that the sight of
her awakened an irresistible desire of possession in the depths
of the heart. Her eyes were bright and dark and expressive, her
movements graceful, her foot charming. An experienced man of
pleasure would not have given her more than thirty years, her
forehead was so girlish. She had all the most transient delicate
detail of youth in her face. In character she seemed to me to
resemble the Comtesse de Lignolles and the Marquise de B----, two
feminine types always fresh in the memory of any young man who
has read Louvet's romance.

In a moment I saw how things stood, and took a diplomatic course
that would have done credit to an old ambassador. For once, and
perhaps for the only time in my life, I used tact, and knew in
what the special skill of courtiers and men of the world
consists.

I have had so many battles to fight since those heedless days,
that they have left me no time to distil all the least actions of
daily life, and to do everything so that it falls in with those
rules of etiquette and good taste which wither the most generous
emotions.

"M. le Comte," I said with an air of mystery, "I should like a