He had spoken so seriously that Suzanne had not dared to press the matter, though his scruples had appeared to her somewhat ridiculous. But then, if he had not been so unsophisticated and such a _gobeur_, as she called him in that horrible Parisian slang that spares not even the highest forms of sentiment, would she have been so fond of him? And yet it was this very innocence of soul that she feared. If ever he should get to hear what her life was really like, how his noble heart would turn against her, and how incompatible it would be with his high sense of honour ever to forgive her! A hint had, nevertheless, somehow reached him. In going over the different signs of danger that she had noticed one after another--René's trouble, his anger against Colette Rigaud, his reticence and his unexpected visit to Madame Komof--Suzanne said to herself: 'I made a mistake in not getting him to explain at once.' When, therefore, she made her appearance in the Rue des Dames a few days later she was fully determined not to fall into the same error again. She saw at once that the poet was even more distressed than before, though she pretended not to notice this distress nor the cool manner in which he received her first kiss. With a sad smile she said to him: 'It was very silly of you, dear, not to tell me you were about to call on the Comtesse. I would have taken care that you were spared a meeting which must have been very painful?' 'Painful?' repeated René in an ironical tone that Suzanne had never heard him use before, 'why, M. Moraines was charming.' 'Yes,' she replied, 'you have made a conquest. He, so sarcastic as a rule, spoke of you with an enthusiasm that really pained me. Didn't he invite you to call on us? You may be proud. It is so rare that he welcomes a new face. Poor René,' she continued, placing both her hands on her lover's shoulder, and laying her cheek on her hands, 'how you must have suffered!' 'I have indeed suffered,' replied René, in a hollow voice. He looked at the pretty face so near his own and remembered what Suzanne had said to him in the Louvre before the portrait of the Giorgione's mistress, 'How can anyone lie with a face like that?' Yet she had lied to him. And what proof had he that she had not been lying all along? Whilst a prey to the torments of suspicion, and especially since his meeting with Paul, the most frightful conjectures had entered his mind. The contrast between the Moraines he had seen and the tyrannical husband described by Suzanne had been too great. 'Why has she deceived me on that point too?' René had asked himself.