And who is _she_? She is carefully described by the author as being such that Adolphe's love for her, however strong, is certain sooner or later to be affected by social considerations. In the first place, Adolphe is not the only man she has loved, and the verdict of society has been passed upon her before they meet; she is not his equal in its eyes, although she is so by birth. In the second place, she is considerably older than he; and in the third, hers is a passionate, power-loving nature, which could only be fused with his if social conditions favoured the process, and which must make both unhappy if they harden him against her. When Adolphe makes her acquaintance, Eléonore is no young, inexperienced girl, who learns for the first time what love is; she is a woman, whose new emotions stand out upon a background of sad, harrowing experience. The mark which this experience has set upon her is the first noticeable trait in her personality. Eléonore has relinquished her right to all the privileges and pleasures of a safe-guarded, peaceful life. Although of good family and born to wealth, she has left home and family to follow the man she loves, as his mistress. She has chosen between the world and him, and has ennobled her action by entirely, unconditionally sacrificing herself for his sake. She has done him the greatest services, has saved his fortune, and been as faithful as any wife could be, endeavouring by this absolute fidelity to solace the pride wounded by the reprobation and scorn of the world. Strength of will is the second noticeable feature of the character. When the first doubt of her friend's constancy assails her, the whole edifice that she has raised crumbles to pieces. Does he love her, or does he only treat her as a man of honour must? is he faithful, or is he only too proud and too well-bred to show himself ungrateful and indifferent? With tears she puts the question to herself, with anguish answers it. It is at this moment that she meets Adolphe. He is drawn to her with a desire in which his whole thirst for life and all that life contains is concentrated, drawn as to one in whom he mysteriously feels treasures of passion, tenderness, enthusiasm, intellect, and experience to be accumulated, buried, as it were. And his longing and her regret, his vanity and her despair, his youth and her disappointment take hold of each other like two wheels in the works of a watch.