'What pleases me, too, so much in the "Sigisbée,"' she observed, in her sweet, musical voice, 'is the faith in love portrayed there--the horror of coquetry, of lies, of all that dishonours the most divine sentiment of which the human soul is capable. Believe me,' she added, resting her head upon her hand as if in deep reflection, and regarding René with a look of such seriousness that it seemed to concentrate all her thoughts; 'believe me, the day that you doubt the reality of love you will cease to be a poet. But there is a God who watches over genius,' she went on, with a kind of suppressed emotion. 'That God will not permit the splendid gifts with which he has endowed you to be sterilised by scepticism--for you are a believer, I am sure, and a good Catholic?' 'I was,' he replied. 'And now?' she asked, with a look almost of pain on her face. 'I have my days of doubt,' he answered in simple fashion. She was silent, whilst he sat gazing in speechless admiration at this woman who, in the vortex of Society life, could still ascend to a world of higher and nobler ideas. He did not stop to think that there was something degrading--something like an attempt to gain cheap applause--in parading before a stranger--and what else was he to her?--the most sacred feelings of the heart. Although he had in his uncle, the Abbé Taconet, a perfect example of a true Christian soul, he was not surprised to hear Madame Moraines combine in one sentence two things so completely foreign to each other as a belief in God and the gift of writing plays in verse. He knew nothing except that to hear her voice once more, to see in her blue eyes that expression of true faith, to gaze upon the curl of her dainty lips, to feel her presence near him now, always, and for ever, he would have braved the direst perils. Amid this silence the singing of the tea urn in a corner of the little _salon_ became more perceptible. Suzanne passed her hand with its well-polished nails over her eyes; then, with a smile of apology for having dared, ignorant as she was, to broach such serious problems to a great mind like his, she suddenly changed her theme as lightly as some women will offer you a sandwich after having discussed the immortality of the soul. 'But you have not come here to be preached at,' she cried, 'and I am forgetting that I am only a worldly woman after all. Will you have a cup of tea? Then come and help me make it.'