This strange inclination to act exactly contrary to her inmost nature, which, when light and artificial is called spite, was exalted in this distempered soul to the pitch of aberration, and she listened with a pleased smile to what De Varades said to her. The latter, clever enough to discern that something extraordinary was going on in Madame Chazel's mind, and too desirous of requital not to take advantage of the opportunity, had again begun to speak to her of his feelings. In passionate terms he depicted to her his despair at Bourges when he had displeased her, his vain attempts at self-consolation, his resolve never to marry for her sake; he gave her to understand that she was the only woman he had ever loved, and that he had sought an appointment at Paris solely that he might meet her again. Never had he dared to tell her so much at the period of their early relationships, and before his brutal assault. But to all these falsehoods, repeated over and over again during this first waltz, then in the square dances which followed, and then in the quietude of the cotillon which they danced together, she responded by such slight interjections of doubt as encourage avowals. She seemed to be delirious for coquetry; she spent upon this flirtation of an evening the fever that was preying upon her. Thus, a few hours later, the officer, on his return to his small abode in the Rue Saint-Dominique--a suite of apartments of which only two were furnished, the others being filled with uniforms, weapons, and big boots--swore inwardly as he undressed that he would carry this affair through with a high hand. From his grandfather, who had served under the Emperor, De Varades inherited the maxim that everything, in all circumstances, should be ventured with women. And so, when he laid his head upon his pillow before going to sleep, he had resolved to essay the possession of Madame Chazel, no matter where, even were it on the couch in her drawing-room, at the risk of a servant's entrance. "And this time she shall not escape. She told me she was always at home between two and four. Till to-morrow," he added, and closed his eyes on the sweet hope of repairing his former wrong. Poor Helen! While this man, anticipating the temerity with which frenzy for injustice endured had inspired her, was falling asleep over his dangerous plan, she herself was watching, a prey to those memories each one of which was hurrying her to some act of madness. Her husband had been unlucky enough to say to her on their return to the Rue de la Rochefoucauld after the party at the Malhoures': "I thought you had quite an antipathy to Varades, and you danced with scarcely anybody else." "Does that make you jealous?" she had asked him abruptly. "No," he had replied, "but how is it possible to change one's disposition towards people in this way?" "I am what it pleases me to be," she had replied.