She was
perfection then, and to this day is considered one of the most
beautiful women in Paris; but at that time a man would have endured
death to win one of her glances. She had been left with an amount of
fortune sufficient for a woman who had loved and was adored; but the
Restoration, to which she owed renewed lustre, made it seem inadequate
in comparison with her name. In my position I was so fatuous as never
to dream of a suspicion. Though my jealousy would have been of a
hundred and twenty Othello-power, that terrible passion slumbered in
me as gold in the nugget. I would have ordered my servant to thrash me
if I had been so base as ever to doubt the purity of that angel--so
fragile and so strong, so fair, so artless, pure, spotless, and whose
blue eyes allowed my gaze to sound it to the very depths of her heart
with adorable submissiveness. Never was there the slightest hesitancy
in her attitude, her look, or word; always white and fresh, and ready
for the Beloved like the Oriental Lily of the 'Song of Songs!' Ah! my
friends!" sadly exclaimed the Minister, grown young again, "a man must
hit his head very hard on the marble to dispel that poem!"
This cry of nature, finding an echo in the listeners, spurred the
curiosity he had excited in them with so much skill.
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