'Poor child!' thought Madame Offarel as she returned to the _salon_, 'she is so simple; she has not got him to talk of anything but that wretched play!' Then, in order to be revenged on some one for René's procrastination in proposing, she added aloud, 'Tell me--isn't your friend Larcher rather jealous of your success?' CHAPTER VI AN OBSERVER'S LOGIC René had entered the house in the Rue de Bagneux a prey to painful impressions, and when he left it his impressions were more painful still. Then he had been discontented with his surroundings--now he was discontented with himself. He had called on Rosalie with the idea of giving her a little pleasure, and sparing her the trifling pain of hearing all about his success from the mouth of another; instead of which his visit had only caused the girl fresh grief. Although the poet had never harboured aught else than an imaginary love for this child with the beautiful black eyes, that love had gone deep enough to implant in his breast what is last to die in the break-up of any passion--an extraordinary power of following the least movements of that virgin heart, and a pity, as unavailing as it was distressing, for all the pain he had caused it. Once more he asked himself this question: 'Is it not my duty to tell her I no longer love her?' An insoluble question, for it admits of only two replies--both impossible ones--the first, cruel and brutal in its egoism, if our feelings are plain; the second a frightful mixture of pity and treachery, if they are complicated. The young man shook his head as if to chase away the obtrusive thought, and muttering the eternal 'We shall see--later on,' by which so many agonies have been prolonged, forced himself to look about him. He had mechanically turned his steps towards that portion of the Faubourg Saint-Germain where, in younger days, he had loved to walk, and, inspired by Balzac, that dangerous Iliad of poor plebeians, imagine that he saw the face of a Duchesse de Langeais or de Maufrigneuse looking out from every window. He was now in that wide but desolate thoroughfare called Rue Barbet-de-Jouy, which, by reason of the total absence of shops, the grandeur of its buildings, and the countrified look of its enclosed gardens, seems a fitting frame for some fine lady of artificial aristocracy. An inevitable association of ideas brought René's mind back to the Komof mansion, and the thought of that lordly dwelling conjured up, for the fourth time that day, but more clearly than ever, the image of Madame Moraines. This time, however, worn-out by the fretful emotions through which he had passed, he became entirely absorbed in the contemplation of that image instead of trying to dispel it. To think of Madame Moraines was to forget Rosalie, and experience, moreover, a peculiarly sweet sensation.