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“In fact he adored Emily and had the fullest confidence in her.

“So Emily continued to see company.

However, she only received intimate acquaintances, and the presence of her
mother prevented the most malicious tongues from blaming her. But no one ever
dared to breathe a single word which could have sullied her reputation.

“Some three months since, Monsieur de Château-Renaud got introduced to her.
You believe in presentiments, do you? At sight of him, I trembled. He did not
speak to me. He was, what a man of the world is, in a salon, but
notwithstanding, when he left, I already hated him. Why, I did not know myself.

“Or, rather, I had perceived that he felt the same impression which had been
made upon me, when I saw Emily for the first time.

“As for her, it appeared to me that Emily had received him with more than
usual coquetry.

“No doubt this was a mistake; but I have told you that in the depths of my
heart I had never ceased loving Emily, and I was jealous.

“So, on the next reception day, I did not lose sight of Monsieur de
Château-Renaud. Perhaps he noticed my pertinacity in following him with my eyes;
and it seemed to me, that while talking in a low tone to Emily, he tried to make
me appear ridiculous.

“If I had only attended to the voice of my heart, I should have sought a
quarrel with him that very evening, and under any pretext would have fought a
duel with him. But I controlled myself, considering that such conduct would be
absurd.

“But how could I help it? every Friday after this was a torment to me. Mons.
de Château-Renaud being altogether a man of the world, a fashionable, a lion, I
was; forced to acknowledge his superiority over me, in many respects; but I
thought that Emily placed him still higher than he deserved.

“Soon after, it appeared that I was not the only person who noticed this
preference of Emily for Monsieur de Château-Renaud; a preference which increased
so rapidly and so visibly, that one day Giordano, who like me visited her house,
spoke to me about it.

“From that time my decision was taken. I determined to speak to Emily on the
subject, as I was convinced there was only a thoughtlessness on her part, which
would make it merely necessary for me to open her eyes to her own conduct, to
change all which so far had been calculated to fix upon her the charge of
levity.

“But, to my great surprise, Emily took my observations as a joke, pretending
that I was foolish, and that all who thought as I did, were as silly as myself.

“I insisted.

“Emily then answered that she could not rely upon me in a matter of this
kind, and that a lover was necessarily a partial judge.

“I remained amazed; her husband had told her all.

“From this time, regarded in the light of a disappointed and jealous lover,
my position became odious and nearly ridiculous. I ceased visiting Emily.

“But I still continued to receive news from her, and was not the less unhappy
for that, for the assiduities of Château-Renaud to Emily began to be generally
noticed, and openly spoken of.

“I resolved to write to her. I did so in the most careful and studied manner
of which I was capable, beseeching her in the name of her compromised honor, in
the name of her absent husband, who was full of confidence in her, to keep a
strict watch over all her actions. She did not answer me.

“How could she help it? Love is independent of the will: the poor creature
loved, and because she loved she was blind, or, rather, was determined to be so.

“Some time after this I heard it openly said that Emily was the mistress of
Château-Renaud.

“What I then suffered is impossible for me to describe. It was at this period
that my poor brother felt, by a peculiar sympathy, the pain I endured.

“Meanwhile, some ten or twelve days elapsed, during which time you arrived.

“The very day upon which you first called at my house, I had received an
anonymous letter. It was from a lady, who gave me a rendezvous at the Bal de
l’0péra. She told me that she had certain information to communicate concerning
a friend of mine, a lady, but would content herself for the present by telling
me her first name.