second look.

"Good Heavens! see how fat he is!" was with her the utmost expression
of contempt.

To hear her, people of respectable corpulence were incapable of
sentiment, bad husbands, and unfit for civilized society. Though it is
esteemed a beauty in the East, to be fat seemed to her a misfortune
for a woman; but in a man it was a crime. These paradoxical views were
amusing, thanks to a certain liveliness of rhetoric. The Count felt
nevertheless that by-and-by his daughter's affections, of which
the absurdity would be evident to some women who were not less
clear-sighted than merciless, would inevitably become a subject of
constant ridicule. He feared lest her eccentric notions should deviate
into bad style. He trembled to think that the pitiless world might
already be laughing at a young woman who remained so long on the stage
without arriving at any conclusion of the drama she was playing. More
than one actor in it, disgusted by a refusal, seemed to be waiting for
the slightest turn of ill-luck to take his revenge. The indifferent,
the lookers-on were beginning to weary of it; admiration is always
exhausting to human beings. The old Vendeen knew better than any one
that if there is an art in choosing the right moment for coming
forward on the boards of the world, on those of the Court, in a
drawing-room or on the stage, it is still more difficult to quit them
in the nick of time. So during the first winter after the accession of
Charles X., he redoubled his efforts, seconded by his three sons and
his sons-in-law, to assemble in the rooms of his official residence
the best matches which Paris and the various deputations from
departments could offer. The splendor of his entertainments, the
luxury of his dining-room, and his dinners, fragrant with truffles,