'And don't you think that I have suffered too?' she replied. 'Why should I deny it? You speak of your letters--God knows that I did not want to read them! I kept the first one in my pocket a whole day, having neither the courage to tear it open nor to burn it. To read your words was to hear you speak once more, and I had determined that it should not be! I had prayed to my guardian angel so long and so fervently for strength to forget you. How I struggled to do so!' Here the Madonna appeared for the last time. She lifted her eyes to heaven--or rather to the ceiling, from which hung two or three little Japanese dolls--and in her glorious orbs were reflected the wings of her guardian angel as he flew far, far away. . . . Fixing her blue eyes once more on René, she sighed in that tone of abandonment that proves a conquered heart: 'I am lost now, but what of that? I love you so dearly that I do not care what happens--only I cannot bear to picture you in distress.' Here she broke down, her bosom racked with convulsive sobs, and as the poet tenderly kissed her tears away her head once more fell upon his breast. She lay there for a few moments listening to the wild beating of his heart--then, like a tired child, she entwined her arms about his neck, and heaved a sigh of peace. CHAPTER XIV HAPPY DAYS When Suzanne left the house in the Rue Coëtlogon her next meeting with René was already arranged. After taking a few steps down the little street she stopped and turned her head, although it would have been more prudent to walk straight on, as she always did in the Rue du Mont-Thabor. But so firm a hold had passion obtained upon this usually cold-blooded woman that she smiled and waved her hand at the poet as he stood watching her from the window of the room in which she had enjoyed such a triumph--for all her calculations had turned out perfectly correct. Getting into a cab at the corner of the Rue d'Assas, she drove to the Bon Marché, where she had ordered her carriage to meet her; on the way the details of the conversation she had had with René recurred to her, and, going over them again, she congratulated herself upon the manner in which she had acquitted herself. As soon as the first real step has been taken in an intrigue of this kind the discussion of further arrangements becomes as easy and as delightful as it was before hateful and difficult. Suzanne had been the first to attack this delicate question. 'I want you to promise me something. If you do not wish me to reproach myself with this love as with a crime, promise me that you won't go out into Society at all. You are not accustomed to that kind of life, and you ought to be at work. You would fritter away your magnificent talents and genius in idle nonsense, and I should look upon myself as the cause. Promise me that you won't go and see anyone'--and in a whisper--'any of those women who flocked round you the other night.'