A law in our nature bids our passions grow stronger in proportion to the number of obstacles to be overcome, so that the remorse of his infidelity to poor Rosalie resulted in making René's heart beat faster as the time fixed by Madame Moraines for their next meeting drew near. She, on her side, awaited him with an almost feverish impatience that astonished even herself. She had looked out for the young poet whenever she had been in the street, and again at the Opera when Friday came round. Had she seen his eyes fixed upon her in that simple adoration which is as compromising as a declaration, she would have said, 'How imprudent!' Not to see him, however, gave her a slight fit of doubt, which brought her caprice to its climax. She looked forward to this visit all the more anxiously because she considered it decisive. It was the third time René visited her, and, out of these three times, twice unknown to her husband. Further than that she could not go, on account of the servants. A day or two back Paul, meaning no harm, had said to her at dinner, 'I was talking to Desforges about René Vincy. He doesn't seem to have made a good impression on the Baron. It is decidedly better not to see the authors too closely whose works we admire.' If the servant who had announced the poet had been in the dining-room at the moment these words were uttered Suzanne would have had to speak. The same thing might happen the next or any other day. She was therefore determined to find a peg in her conversation with René on which to hang an appointment elsewhere. An idea suddenly occurred to her of going somewhere with the poet under pretence of curiosity--a meeting in Notre Dame, for instance, or in some old church sufficiently distant from the fashionable quarter of Paris to be beyond the risk of danger, and she relied upon one or other of René's poems to furnish her with an opportunity of making such an appointment. On this occasion she once more wore a walking-dress, for, having attended a marriage ceremony in the morning, she had kept on the rather smart mauve gown in which her shapely figure, elegant shoulders, and slim waist were so well set off. Thus attired, and lounging back in a low arm-chair--an attitude that marked the adorable outlines of her body--she begged the poet, after the usual commonplaces had passed, to commence his reading. She listened to his poetry without betraying any surprise at the peculiar drawl with which even the best scholars intone their verses, her great intelligent eyes and the repose of her face seeming to indicate the closest attention. At rare intervals she would venture upon some apparently involuntary exclamation, such as: 'How beautiful that is!' or, 'Will you repeat those lines?--I like them so much!'