She supplied generously and
without a murmur the money needed for his lavishness; but in her
anxiety to husband her dear Theodore's fortune, she was strictly
economical for herself and in certain details of domestic management.
Such conduct is incompatible with the easy-going habits of artists,
who, at the end of their life, have enjoyed it so keenly that they
never inquire into the causes of their ruin.
It is useless to note every tint of shadow by which the brilliant hues
of their honeymoon were overcast till they were lost in utter
blackness. One evening poor Augustine, who had for some time heard her
husband speak with enthusiasm of the Duchesse de Carigliano, received
from a friend certain malignantly charitable warnings as to the nature
of the attachment which Sommervieux had formed for this celebrated
flirt of the Imperial Court. At one-and-twenty, in all the splendor of
youth and beauty, Augustine saw herself deserted for a woman of
six-and-thirty. Feeling herself so wretched in the midst of a world of
festivity which to her was a blank, the poor little thing could no
longer understand the admiration she excited, or the envy of which she
was the object. Her face assumed a different expression. Melancholy,
tinged her features with the sweetness of resignation and the pallor
of scorned love. Ere long she too was courted by the most fascinating
men; but she remained lonely and virtuous. Some contemptuous words
which escaped her husband filled her with incredible despair.
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