Edith Wharton

Madame de Treymes Edith Wharton

His European visits were infrequent enough to have kept unimpaired the freshness of his eye, and he was always struck anew by the vast and consummately ordered spectacle of Paris: by itslook of having been boldly and deliberately planned as a background for the enjoyment of life, instead of being forced into grudging concessions to the festive instincts, or barricading itselfagainst them in unenlightened ugliness, like his own lamentable New York. But to-day, if the scene had never presented itself more alluringly, in that moist spring bloombetween showers, when the horse-chestnuts dome themselves in unreal green against a gauzysky, and the very dust of the pavement seems the fragrance of lilac made visible-to-day for thefirst time the sense of a personal stake in it all, of having to reckon individually with its effectsand influences, kept Durham from an unrestrained yielding to the spell. Paris might still be-tothe unimplicated it doubtless still was-the most beautiful city in the world; but whether it werethe most lovable or the most detestable depended for him, in the last analysis, on the buttoning ofthe white glove over which Fanny de Malrive still lingere