The recollection of this carriage produced a new association of ideas in Hubert, and he could see again the moment at which he had confessed the secret of his feelings for the first time. Madame de Sauve and he had met that day about five o'clock in a drawing-room in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and as it was beginning to rain in torrents the young woman had proposed to Hubert, who had come on foot, to take him in her carriage, having, she said, a visit to pay near the Rue Vaneau, which would enable her to leave him at his door on the way. He had, in fact, taken his seat beside her in the narrow double brougham lined with green leather, in which there lingered something of that subtle atmosphere which makes the carriage of an elegant woman a sort of little boudoir on wheels, with all the trifling objects belonging to a pretty interior. The hot-water jar was growing lukewarm beneath their feet; the glass, set in its sheath in front, awaited a glance; the memorandum book placed in the nook, with its pencil and visiting cards, spoke of worldly tasks; the clock hanging on the right marked the rapid flight of those sweet minutes. A half-opened book, slipped into the place where portable purchases are usually put, showed that Theresa had obtained the fashionable novel at the bookseller's. Outside in the streets, where the lamps were beginning to light up, there was the wildness of a glacial winter storm. Theresa, wrapped in a long cloak which showed the outlines of her figure, was silent. In the triple reflection from the carriage lamps, the gas in the street and the expiring day, she was so divinely pale and beautiful that Hubert, overpowered by emotion, took her hand. She did not withdraw it; she looked at him with motionless eyes, that were drowned, as it were, in tears which she would not have dared to shed. Without even hearing the sound of his own words, so intoxicated was he by this look, he said to her: "Ah! how I love you!" She grew still more pale, and laid her gloved hand upon his mouth to make him be silent. He began to kiss this hand madly, seeking for the place where the opening of the glove allowed him to feel the living warmth of the wrist. She replied to this caress by that word which all women utter at like moments--a word so simple, but one into which creep so many inflexions, from the most mortal indifference to the most emotional tenderness-- "You are a child." "Do you love me a little?" he asked her. And then, as she looked at him with those same eyes which sent forth a ray of happiness, he could hear her murmur in a stifled voice: "A great deal."