made out of nothing, though they were quite pretty all the same, were
gone,--gone the days of the frocks which were not impeccably smart,
though they had much of her own grace, and were, indeed, a part of
herself! The sweet intimate charm which shone upon all about her grew
fainter every day. The poetry of her nature was lost. She was becoming
commonplace.

They changed their flat. The rooms which they had furnished with so much
trouble and pleasure seemed narrow and ugly. Instead of the cozy little
rooms, all radiant with her spirit, with a friendly tree waving its
delicate foliage against the windows, they took an enormous,
comfortable, well-arranged flat which they did not, could not, love,
where they were bored to death. Instead of their old friendly
belongings, they obtained furniture and hangings which were strangers to
them. There was no place left for memories. The first years of their
married life were swept away from their thoughts.... It is a great
misfortune for two people living together to have the ties which bind
them to their past love broken! The image of their love is a safeguard
against the disappointment and hostility which inevitably succeed the
first years of tenderness.... The power to spend largely had brought
Jacqueline, both in Paris and abroad--(for now that they were rich they
often traveled)--into touch with a class of rich and useless people,
whose society gave her a sort of contempt for the rest of mankind, all
those who had work to do. With her marvelous power of adaptation, she
very quickly caught the color of these sterile and rotten men and women.
She could not fight against it. At once she became refractory and
irritable, regarding the idea that it was possible--and right--to be
happy in her domestic duties and the _aurea mediocritus_ as mere
"vulgar manners." She had lost even the capacity to understand the
bygone days when she had so generously given herself in love.