The poet still treated the shameful accusations brought by Colette against Suzanne with scorn, but, by dint of pondering on her words in order to refute them, his mind became more accustomed to their tenour. At the moment when the actress had made her terrible charge he had not stooped to rebut it; but now, as he turned it over in his mind, he tried to save himself from a terrible abyss of doubt and from the most degrading jealousy by clutching at the marks of sincerity Suzanne had given him. What, then, were his feelings when, at the very outset of their next meeting, he received undeniable proofs that her sincerity was not what he had thought it? He had reached the Rue des Dames with a troubled look on his face that had not escaped Suzanne. In reply to her solicitous inquiries he had pretended that it was due to an unfair article that had appeared in some paper, but had almost immediately felt ashamed of this innocent excuse, so sweetly had his mistress rebuked him. 'You big baby, you cannot have success without inspiring jealousy.' 'Let us talk about you instead,' he replied, and then asked, with a beating heart: What have you been doing since I saw you last?' Had Suzanne been watching him at that moment she must have seen his agitation. It was a trap--innocent and simple enough--but a trap for all that. In three times twenty-four hours suspicion had brought the enthusiastic lover to this degree of distrust. But Suzanne could not know this, for he was treating her in exactly the same way as she was treating Desforges. She did not think René capable of stepping out of the only _rôle_ in which she had seen him. How could she imagine that this simple boy was trying to catch her? 'What have I been doing?' she repeated. 'First of all I went to the Gymnase the other evening with my husband. Fortunately we haven't much to say to each other, so I could think of you just as well as if I were alone--I do feel so alone when I am with him. You talk of the troubles of your literary life--if you only knew the misery of my so-called life of pleasure and the loneliness of these weary _tête-à-têtes!_' 'Did you feel bored at the theatre, then?' continued René. 'You were not there,' she replied with a smile, and looked more intently at him. 'What is the matter, love?' She had never seen this bitter, almost hard, expression on René's face. 'It's very stupid of me, but I can't forget that article,' said the poet. 'Was it so very bad, then? Where did it appear?' she asked, her instinct of danger thoroughly aroused; but René, being unable to reply to this unexpected question, merely stammered, 'It isn't worth your troubling to read it.'