"At this period of the story I became intimate with Claudine, whose acquaintance I had previously but hurriedly made when travelling. It was in Trouville. You know how swiftly people become intimate in a watering-place. She introduced to me the victor in the endless row of suitors for her hand. After careful examination I could not altogether agree with her choice. In most points, it is true, he answered the requirements of the programme. He was no longer young--fifty-one, or -two; held a high command in the army, and brought her as dower a not inglorious past. He had led a wild and wandering life, and been the hero of a thousand adventures, but there was not the slightest stain upon his name--at least not in the eyes of society. Moreover, though not an intellectual man,--which she would have disliked in the long run,--he was one of those who are able to captivate even the most fastidious company, by their quick perception, their lively temperament, and their varied and abundant experience, upon which they can, aided by an excellent memory and natural eloquence, draw at all times. All this was, as I said, excellent as far as it went; but one thing I thought very hazardous--it seemed by no means impossible to me that he should still be capable of a serious, passionate attachment, and--this comes, almost to the same thing--still capable of inspiring it. Now, either lay assuredly beyond the programme which my friend had sketched out for herself.
"I told Claudine of my fears. She endeavoured to argue me out of them thus: 'What you think to be real and direct light,' she would say, 'is nothing but the reflection of the sun that set long ago upon glacial Alpine summits. It looks beautiful, and people cry, Ah! and Oh! when they see it; and for their sake I would not willingly miss it. But one cannot be warmed by it, or set on fire by it! My dear child, with all that blaze you could not make your kettle boil, far less rekindle the bitter and bare embers of a heart like mine!'
"As far as the gentleman was concerned, Claudine might be right. At least the somewhat boastful and exaggerated gallantry with which he laid his homage at her feet corresponded, as far as I could judge, exactly with her prediction. But how greatly she had been mistaken about herself the immediate future was to show.