and undertake some honest trade.  She had found one of her old friends, who was now an accomplished dressmaker, and who was anxious to obtain a partner who had some money, while she herself furnished the experience.  They would purchase an establishment in the Breda quarter, and between them could scarcely fail to prosper.  Jenny talked with a pretty, knowing, business-like air, which made Hector laugh.  These projects seemed very comic to him; yet he was touched by this unselfishness on the part of a young and pretty woman, who was willing to work in order to please him.

But, unhappily, they were forced to part.  Jenny had gone to Corbeil intending to stay a week; but the count told her this was absolutely impossible.  She cried bitterly at first, then got angry, and finally consoled herself with a plan to return on the following Tuesday.

“Good-by,” said she, embracing Hector, “think of me.”  She smilingly added, “I ought to be jealous; for they say your friend’s wife is perhaps the handsomest woman in France.  Is it true?”

“Upon my word, I don’t know.  I’ve forgotten to look at her.”

Hector told the truth.  Although he did not betray it, he was still under the surprise of his chagrin at the failure of his attempt at suicide.  He felt the dizziness which follows great moral crises as well as a heavy blow on the head, and which distracts the attention from exterior things.  But Jenny’s words, “the handsomest woman in France,” attracted his notice, and he could, that very evening, repair his forgetfulness.  When he returned to Valfeuillu, his friend had not returned; Mme. Sauvresy was alone reading, in the brilliantly lighted drawing-room.  Hector seated himself opposite her, a little aside, and was thus able to observe her at his ease, while engaging her in conversation.  His first impression was an unfavorable one.  He found her beauty too sculptural and polished.  He sought for imperfections, and finding none, was almost terrified by this lovely, motionless face, these clear, cold eyes.  Little by little, however, he accustomed himself to pass the greater part of the afternoon with Bertha, while Sauvresy was away arranging his affairs—­selling, negotiating, using his time in cutting down interests and discussing with agents and attorneys.  He soon perceived that she listened to him with pleasure, and he judged from this that she was a decidedly superior woman, much better than her husband.  He had no wit, but possessed an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes and adventures.  He had seen so many things and known so many people that he was as interesting as a chronicle.  He had a sort of frothy fervor, not wanting in brilliancy, and a polite cynicism which, at first, surprised one.  Had Bertha been unimpassioned, she might have judged him at his value; but she had lost her power of insight.  She heard him, plunged in a foolish ecstasy, as one hears a traveller who has returned from far and dangerous countries, who has visited peoples of whose language the hearer is ignorant, and lived in the midst of manners and customs incomprehensible to ourselves.