Two or three examples may serve to show this reaction of luxury upon happiness; so that all those women who have endured it may behold their own experience.

Fully aware now of this terrible rivalry, Sabine studied her husband when he left the house, that she might divine, if possible, the future of his day.  With what restrained fury does a woman fling herself upon the red-hot spikes of that savage martyrdom!  What delirious joy if she could think he did not go to the rue de Chartres!  Calyste returned, and then the study of his forehead, his hair, his eyes, his countenance, his demeanor, gave a horrible interest to mere nothings, to observations pursued even to matters of toilet, in which a woman loses her self-respect and dignity.  These fatal investigations, concealed in the depths of her heart, turn sour and rot the delicate roots from which should spring to bloom the azure flowers of sacred confidence, the golden petals of the One only love, with all the perfumes of memory.

One day Calyste looked about him discontentedly; he had stayed at home!  Sabine made herself caressing and humble, gay and sparkling.

“You are vexed with me, Calyste; am I not a good wife?  What is there here that displeases you?” she asked.

“These rooms are so cold and bare,” he replied; “you don’t understand arranging things.”

“Tell me what is wanting.”

“Flowers.”

“Ah!” she thought to herself, “Madame de Rochefide likes flowers.”

Two days later, the rooms of the hotel du Guenic had assumed another aspect.  No one in Paris could flatter himself to have more exquisite flowers than those that now adorned them.

Some time later Calyste, one evening after dinner, complained of the cold.  He twisted about in his chair, declaring there was a draught, and seemed to be looking for something.  Sabine could not at first imagine what this new fancy signified, she, whose house possessed a calorifere which heated the staircases, antechambers, and passages.  At last, after three days’ meditation, she came to the conclusion that her rival probably sat surrounded by a screen to obtain the half-lights favorable to faded faces; so Sabine had a screen, but hers was of glass and of Israelitish splendor.

“From what quarter will the next storm come?” she said to herself.

These indirect comparisons with his mistress were not yet at an end.  When Calyste dined at home he ate his dinner in a way to drive Sabine frantic; he would motion to the servants to take away his plates after pecking at two or three mouthfuls.

“Wasn’t it good?” Sabine would ask, in despair at seeing all the pains she had taken in conference with her cook thrown away.

“I don’t say that, my angel,” replied Calyste, without anger; “I am not hungry, that is all.”

A woman consumed by a legitimate passion, who struggles thus, falls at last into a fury of desire to get the better of her rival, and often goes too far, even in the most secret regions of married life.  So cruel, burning, and incessant a combat in the obvious and, as we may call them, exterior matters of a household must needs become more intense and desperate in the things of the heart.  Sabine studied her attitudes, her toilets; she took heed about herself in all the infinitely little trifles of love.