Six months later, however, having met Count Gerard de Quinsac she had again been unable to resist her imperative need of adoration, and an intrigue had followed.
"Have you been ill, my dear Gerard ?" she inquired, noticing the young man's embarrassment.

"Are you hiding some worry from me ?" She was ten years older than he was; and she clung desperately to this last passion of hers, revolting at the thought of growing old, and resolved upon every effort to keep the young man beside her.
"No, I am hiding nothing, I assure you," replied the Count.

"But my mother has had much need of me recently." She continued looking at him, however, with anxious passion, finding him so tall and aristocratic of mien, with his regular features and dark hair and moustaches which were always most carefully tended.

He belonged to one of the oldest families of France, and resided on a ground-floor in the Rue St.Dominique with his widowed mother, who had been ruined by her adventurously inclined husband, and had at most an income of some fifteen thousand francs* to live upon.

Gerard for his part had never done anything; contenting himself with his one year of obligatory military service, he had renounced the profession of arms in the same way as he had renounced that of diplomacy, the only one that offered him an opening of any dignity.