For there are but two ways of love--love at first sight,
doubtless akin to the Highland 'second-sight,' and that slow fusion of
two natures which realizes Plato's 'man-woman.' But if Charles Edward
did not love, he was loved to distraction. Claudine found love made
complete, body and soul; in her, in short, La Palferine awakened the
one passion of her life; while for him Claudine was only a most
charming mistress. The Devil himself, a most potent magician
certainly, with all hell at his back, could never have changed the
natures of these two unequal fires. I dare affirm that Claudine not
unfrequently bored Charles Edward.
"'Stale fish and the woman you do not love are only fit to fling out
of the window after three days,' he used to say.
"In Bohemia there is little secrecy observed over these affairs. La
Palferine used to talk a good deal of Claudine; but, at the same time,
none of us saw her, nor so much as knew her name. For us Claudine was
almost a mythical personage. All of us acted in the same way,
reconciling the requirements of our common life with the rules of good
taste.
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