The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts

out criticism, and by exclusive admiration. The princess, that noble creature, one of the most remarkable creations of our monstrous Paris, where a

city of a heart all new to love; and she saw, with untold happiness, that these merits were contained in a form that pleased her. She thought d'Arthez handsome, and perhaps he was. Though he had reached the age of gravity (for he was now thirty-eight), he still preserved a flower of youth, due to the sober and ascetic life which he had led. Like all men of sedentary habits, and statesmen, he had acquired a certainly reasonable embonpoint. When very young, he bore some resemblance to Bonaparte; and the likeness still continued, as much as a man with black eyes and thick, dark hair could resemble a sovereign with blue eyes and scanty, chestnut hair. But whatever there once was of ardent and noble ambition in the great author's eyes had been somewhat q

qualities in which they are often lacking, leaving those they have thus duped wounded and distressed. He might, indeed, fail to observe certain rules of social life, owing to his isolated mode of living; but he never shocked the sensibilities, and therefore this perfume o

at all, it was to ask whether she deserved so great a happiness, and what she had done that Heaven should send her such an angel. She wanted to be worthy of that love, to perpetuate it, to make it her own forever, and to gently end her career of frivolity in the paradise sh

ugh it keeps on this side of wickedness; one of those dark and comic dramas to which that of Tartuffe is mere child's play,-dramas that do not enter the scen

e d'Arthez came to see her she was having an indigestion of mind. Expecting this visit, she had daily made a toilet of what may be called the superior order; that is, a toilet which expresses an idea, and makes it accepted by the eye without the owner of the eye knowing why or wherefore. She presented an harmonious combination of shades

he conversation began in a commonplace manner: the weather, the ministry, de Marsay's illness, the hopes of the legitimists. D'Arthez was an absolutist; the princess could not be ignorant of the opinions of a man who sat in the Chamber among the fifteen or twenty persons who repr

their homes, their wives, their private lives,-this is their true self; here no mask, no dissimulation; they do not give themselves the trouble to disguise a feeling; they are what they ARE, and it is often horrible! The other man is for others, for the world, for salons; the court, the sovereign, the publi

flexible figure, gracefully bending in the depths of her easy-chair, noting the folds of her gown, and the pretty little ruffle which sported on her breast,-

should be silent. What folly for women to complain! If they have not proved the stronger, they have failed in sense, in tact, in capacity, and they deserve their fate. Are they not queens in France? They can play with you as they like, when they like, and as much as they like." Here she danced her vinaigrette with an airy movement of feminine impertinence and mocking gayety. "I have often heard miserable little specimens of my sex regretting that they were women, wishing they were men; I have always reg

ch coquettish motions of the head, that d'Arthez, to whom this style of woman w

make you suffer? Be assured that where, as you say, other women are common and vulgar, you c

e said, in a grave voice which

e heart of that rare woman who had so strangely suffered. As for her, she had passed her life in amusing herself with men, and was another Don Juan

under the name of the Duc de Maufrigneuse, otherwise the spice of the princess's confidences would be

ix he was forced to be as absolutely indifferent to the fair sex as his master Charles X., punished, like that master, for having pleased it too well. For eighteen years the idol of the faubourg Saint-Germain, he had, like other heirs of great families led a dissipated life, spent solely on pleasure. His father, ruined by the revolution, had somewhat recovered his

thousand francs a year, not counting her future expectations. Mademoiselle d'Uxelles thus became a duchess, and, as her mother very well knew, she enjoyed the utmost liberty. The duke, after obtaining the unexpected happiness of an heir, left his wife entirely to her own devices, and went off to amuse himself in the various garrisons of France, returning occasionally to Paris, where he made debts which his father paid. He professed the most entire conjugal indulgence, always giving the duchess a week's warning of his return; he was adored by his regiment, beloved by the Dauphin, an adroit courtier, somewhat of a gambler,

of the charming duke without praising him; he was excellent, they said, to his wife; could a man be better? He had left her the entire disposal of her own property, and had always defended her on every occasion. It is true that, whether from pride, kindliness, or

orthy of the highest praise. D'Arthez, amazed, and incapable of suspecting that Diane d'Uxelles merely repeated at night that which she read in the morning (as some writers do), regarded her as a most superior woman. These conversations, however, led awa

studied elegance at the hour when d'Arthez presented himself. This mutual fidelity, the care they each took of their appearance, in fact, all about them expressed sentiments that neither dared avow, for the princess discerned very plainly that the great child with whom she had to do shrank from the combat as much as she desired it. Nev

n fact, Diane enjoyed these delightful juvenilities all the more keenly because she knew that she could put an end to them at any moment. She was like a great artist delighting in the vague, undecided lines of his sketch, knowing well that in a moment of inspiration he can complete the masterpiece still waiting to come to birth

lmost silly beside her. And yet she had moments of repulsion against her own act, moments in which she could not help admiring the grandeur of such simplicity. This game of choicest coquetry attached her, insens