Their acquaintance
had been scraped up yet a year back, when they had been by chance
travelling together on the same steamer to a suburban monastery,
and had begun a conversation. The clever, handsome Tamara; her
enigmatic, depraved smile; her entertaining conversation; her
modest manner of deporting herself, had captivated the notary. She
had even then marked down for herself this elderly man with
picturesque gray hair, with seigniorial manners; an erstwhile
jurisconsult and a man of good family. She did not tell him about
her profession--it pleased her rather to mystify him. She only
hazily, in a few words, hinted at the fact that she was a married
lady of the middle class; that she was unfortunate in domestic
life, since her husband was a gambler and a despot; and that even
by fate she was denied such a consolation as children. At parting
she refused to pass an evening with the notary, and did not want
to meet him; but then she allowed him to write to her--general
delivery, under a fictitious name. A correspondence commenced
between them, in which the notary flaunted his style and the
ardency of his feelings, worthy of the heroes of Paul Bourget.
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