"Oh, nothing," he answered, looking round the table for something he
did not find.

"Ah!" exclaimed Sabine, as she woke the next morning, "Calyste wanted
some of those Indian sauces they serve in England in cruets. Madame de
Rochefide accustoms him to all sorts of condiments."

She bought the English cruets and the spiced sauces; but it soon
became impossible for her to make such discoveries in all the
preparations invented by her rival.

This period lasted some months; which is not surprising when we
remember the sort of attraction presented by such a struggle. It is
life. And that is preferable, with its wounds and its anguish, to the
gloomy darkness of disgust, to the poison of contempt, to the void of
abdication, to that death of the heart which is called indifference.
But all Sabine's courage abandoned her one evening when she appeared
in a toilet such as women are inspired to wear in the hope of
eclipsing a rival, and about which Calyste said, laughing:--

"In spite of all you can do, Sabine, you'll never be anything but a
handsome Andalusian."

"Alas!" she said, dropping on a sofa, "I may never make myself a
blonde, but I know if this continues I shall soon be thirty-five years
old."

She refused to go to the Opera as she intended, and chose to stay at
home the whole evening. But once alone she pulled the flowers from her