All this time Mme. de Beauseant's husband, the present Marquis (his
father and elder brother having died), enjoyed the soundest health.
There is no better aid to life than a certain knowledge that our
demise would confer a benefit on some fellow-creature. M. de Beauseant
was one of those ironical and wayward beings who, like holders of
life-annuities, wake with an additional sense of relish every morning
to a consciousness of good health. For the rest, he was a man of the
world, somewhat methodical and ceremonious, and a calculator of
consequences, who could make a declaration of love as quietly as a
lackey announces that "Madame is served."
This brief biographical notice of his lordship the Marquis de
Beauseant is given to explain the reasons why it was impossible for
the Marquise to marry M. de Nueil.
So, after a nine years' lease of happiness, the sweetest agreement to
which a woman ever put her hand, M. de Nueil and Mme. de Beauseant
were still in a position quite as natural and quite as false as at the
beginning of their adventure. And yet they had reached a fatal crisis,
which may be stated as clearly as any problem in mathematics.
Mme. la Comtesse de Nueil, Gaston's mother, a strait-laced and
virtuous person, who had made the late Baron happy in strictly legal
fashion would never consent to meet Mme.
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