“We had been wrapt up, bound up in each other for the space of three months, and the old man still blundered on in confidence, though I was ever at his wife’s side like her shadow. He frequently consulted me on business matters, and both in public and private, expressed the highest opinion of me. I could not but regret the moment when he would be undeceived, and perceive the real state of things; yet the whole affair had been involuntarily on both sides. Society, which always decides so arbitrarily in these matters, would at once have pronounced that either I was a rake, or she a bold, frail woman. Neither was the case, a woman possessed of more true modesty and integrity than Madame Anacharsis I have never seen; her fault was over self-confidence, and reliance on me; and I, not dreaming of love, cherished to maturity the germ of a passion with which I had already inspired her.
“We had been planning a fête champêtre, and one evening I bent my steps to her house, with a portfolio of beautiful costumes; one, handsomer than the others, I had chosen, and wished to induce her to adopt it for the occasion.
“The attendants were absent from the anti-chamber, and I entered the salon de reception unannounced; Madame was there, alone. She sat upon a low ottoman, her profile toward me; she wore a blue satin dress, made so low in the neck that half her fair bosom was exposed; but it was the fashion then, and when fashion countenances an impropriety, it no longer seems one. She seemed absorbed in thought, for she had slid half off the stool, her small hands clasped, and brown eyes upward fixed in thought, or absentness.
“She started, and rose up on hearing my step, and I now saw that her cheeks were wet with tears; surprised at these unwonted tokens of sadness in one usually so gay, I asked the cause.
“She wiped the tears from her eyes, and seating herself by my side, placed her little hands in mine, (where they had often been before,) and looking me straight in the face, suddenly addressed me thus,
“‘Rinaldo, my husband has discovered our love: he knows all.’
“‘Good heavens, how could he, how should he?’ I cried.
“‘Indeed he has: this very afternoon he told me that he has watched you and me for sometime past, without our knowing it. He spoke so gently, so kindly to me of my fault, that his very leniency made me feel a hundred times more miserable than all the reproaches in the world could have done; he said he knew I was young enough to be his child,—that so great a disparity of years must preclude much happiness; but when he reminded me of the unlimited indulgence with which I had been treated, the tenderness with which all my wants, and even my most fantastic whims had been anticipated; then, indeed, I felt how unjustly I had served him. He told me too, how much confidence he had ever reposed in me, allowing me to go with whom I liked, and where I liked, without question; and turning my eyes inward, I saw how far I had fallen from my own high standard of female virtue.
“‘I said nothing in extenuation of my fault, and in silence acquiesced to guilt; but when my husband took me to his arms again, and told me he would forgive me, even though he became the laughing stock of Paris, on condition I would solemnly swear never to commit the same offence again; and also to send you away, and never more to see your face; then I saw how magnanimous he was in his love, how infatuated in his devotion to me, unworthy me.
“‘And now we must part, dear Rinaldo, I mean to say, Monsieur de Serval, we must never meet again, or if we do meet in public, as strangers. It will be a very hard task for me to tear your image from my heart, but I must; I ought to love my husband: has he not been so kind to me? Oh, yes, I must forget you, and of course you will forget me: very soon some other will usurp my place. Oh, I wish I were dead and buried.’