Everything that had been invented for the embellishment of feminine charm was used about her person with the most exquisite fastidiousness.

She had always lived for herself.

Only a few months before had she abdicated a part of this sweet selfishness, sacrificing reunions, teas, and calls in order to give Desnoyers some of the afternoon hours.
Stylish and painted like a priceless doll, with no loftier ambition than to be a model, interpreting with personal elegance the latest confections of the modistes, she was at last experiencing the same preoccupations and joys as other women, creating for herself an inner life.

The nucleus of this new life, hidden under her former frivolity, was Desnoyers.

Just as she was imagining that she had reorganized her existence--adjusting the satisfactions of worldly elegance to the delights of love in intimate secrecy--a fulminating catastrophe (the intervention of her husband whose possible appearance she seemed to have overlooked) had disturbed her thoughtless happiness.