She was the daughter of Madame Lussac, _née_ Bressuire, whose relations had not left the Rue Saint-Honoré for three generations, and of Adolphus Lussac, Prefect under the Empire, who had come from Auvergne in Monsieur Rouher's train. The chronicle of the drawing-rooms would have answered the question by recalling the Parisian career of the handsome Count Branciforte, somewhere about the year 1858, his greenish-grey eyes, his dead-white complexion, his attentions to Madame Lussac, and his sudden disappearance from surroundings in which for months and months he had always lived. But Hubert was never to have these particulars. By education and by nature he belonged to the race of those who accept life's official gifts and ignore their deep-lying causes, their thorough animality, and their tragic lining--a happy race, for to them belongs the enjoyment of the flower of things, but a race devoted beforehand to catastrophes, for only a clear view of the real will admit of any manipulation of it. No; what Hubert Liauran remembered of this first interview did not consist of questions concerning the singularity of Madame de Sauve's charm. Neither had he examined himself as to the shade of character that might be indicated by the movements of the woman. Instead of studying her face he had enjoyed it as a child will relish the freshness of the atmosphere, with a sort of unconscious delight. The complete absence of irony which distinguished Theresa, and which might be noted in her gentle smile, her calm gaze, her smooth voice, and her tranquil gestures, had instantly been sweet to him. He had not felt in her presence those pangs of painful timidity which the incisive glance of most Parisian ladies inflicts upon all young men. During the journey which they had made together, while De Sauve and George Liauran were speaking of a law concerning religious congregations, the tenour of which was at that time exciting every party, he had sat opposite to her, and had been able to talk to her softly and, without knowing why, with intimacy. He who was usually silent about himself, with a vague idea that the almost insane excitability of his being made him a unique exception, had opened his mind to this woman of twenty-five, whom he had not known for half-an-hour, more than he had ever done to people with whom he dined every fortnight.