In the month of July, Hubert ceased to go out in the evening, and she imagined that they had quarrelled; then George Liauran, whom she had made a confidant of her anxieties, because she knew that he was acquainted with Theresa, informed her that the latter had left for Trouville, and the deception was a blow the more to her. It is the privilege and the scourge of those organisms in which nerves predominate, that griefs, instead of being lulled by habituation, become incessantly more exaggerated and inflamed. The smallest details comprehend an infinity of sorrow within them, as a drop of water comprehends the infinity of heaven. CHAPTER VI Of the few persons composing the home circle in the Rue Vaneau, it was George Liauran himself who was most anxious about the sorrow of Marie Alice, because it was to him that she most completely betrayed her pain. She understood that he was the only one who might some day be of service to her. At every visit he compared the ravages which her one thought had wrought upon her. Her features were growing thin, her cheeks hollow, and her complexion livid, while her hair, hitherto so dark, was whitening in entire tresses. It sometimes happened that George would go out into society at the conclusion of one of these visits, and meet his cousin Hubert, nearly always in the same circle as Madame de Sauve, elegant, handsome, with brilliant eyes and happy mouth. The contrast roused within him strange feelings, which were a mixture of good and evil. On the one hand, indeed, George was very fond of Marie Alice, and with an affection which, during the early days of their youth, had been a very romantic one with them both. On the other, the, to him, indubitable connection between this charming Hubert and Theresa irritated him with a nervous anger without his well knowing why. He felt towards his cousin that insurmountable ill-will which men of more than forty and less than fifty years of age profess for the very young men whom they see making their way in society, and, in fact, taking their own places.