At half-past four the Vicomtesse de Beauseant was visible. Five
minutes earlier she would not have received her cousin, but Eugene
knew nothing of the recognized routine of various houses in Paris. He
was conducted up the wide, white-painted, crimson-carpeted staircase,
between the gilded balusters and masses of flowering plants, to Mme.
de Beauseant's apartments. He did not know the rumor current about
Mme. de Beauseant, one of the biographies told, with variations, in
whispers, every evening in the salons of Paris.

For three years past her name had been spoken of in connection with
that of one of the most wealthy and distinguished Portuguese nobles,
the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto. It was one of those innocent _liaisons_ which
possess so much charm for the two thus attached to each other that
they find the presence of a third person intolerable. The Vicomte de
Beauseant, therefore, had himself set an example to the rest of the
world by respecting, with as good a grace as might be, this morganatic
union. Any one who came to call on the Vicomtesse in the early days of
this friendship was sure to find the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto there. As,
under the circumstances, Mme. de Beauseant could not very well shut
her door against these visitors, she gave them such a cold reception,
and showed so much interest in the study of the ceiling, that no one
could fail to understand how much he bored her; and when it became
known in Paris that Mme. de Beauseant was bored by callers between two
and four o'clock, she was left in perfect solitude during that
interval. She went to the Bouffons or to the Opera with M. de
Beauseant and M. d'Ajuda-Pinto; and M. de Beauseant, like a well-bred
man of the world, always left his wife and the Portuguese as soon as
he had installed them. But M. d'Ajuda-Pinto must marry, and a Mlle. de
Rochefide was the young lady. In the whole fashionable world there was
but one person who as yet knew nothing of the arrangement, and that