How he would have liked to handle that hair which she always denied to him! And she too looked at her hair with happiness, in spite of the pain which her husband caused her by remaining there, for she perceived that it was as long and as wave-like as when she had been a young girl. Every time that she paid attention to her beauty now, she studied herself with childish anxiety, spying out the slightest wrinkle on her temples, about her lips, around her neck, asking herself whether she was still pretty enough to intoxicate the man she loved, and she smiled at herself in the glass as she twined her hair, and leaning forward a little she saw in a corner of the same glass the reflection of her husband's face with a blaze in his eyes--that swift gleam of desire which she knew and hated well. She shivered as though she had awoke to find herself exposed naked in a public square, blushed violently, and said: "I do not know why Julia is not here. Ring again, please, and leave me." She got up, pushed Alfred away, shut the door, and when alone, felt the tears come. "Ah!" she said to herself; "I do not truly love him. Ought not these trifles to be sweet to me since I endure them for his sake?" Such were her thoughts as she sat at the breakfast table, dressed now in a dark-coloured dress, and wearing boots--the boots in which she was presently, and in a very short time, for the time-piece hanging on the wall was pointing to thirty-five minutes past twelve--to walk to that Rue de Stockholm which she had not known even by name before receiving her lover's note. Where was it? What would the house look like? At the mere thought of it, an intoxicating, burning fluid seem to course through her veins. To remain quiet was a torture to her, and as for eating, she was unequal to it. It seemed to her that her throat was so choked that not even a piece of bread would pass through it. Little Henry was talking to his father, and the latter, on failing to receive even a reply from her to two or three questions, said: "How strange you are to-day. Are you not well?" "I?" she said. "Why I am as cheerful and merry as possible," and she began to laugh and to talk in a loud tone. "Can he suspect anything?" she asked herself; "but what matter if he does?" "What are you going to do this afternoon?" asked Alfred again mechanically. "Will you take me with you, mamma?" said Henry. "No, darling," she replied, evading a reply to her husband, "you will go to the Champs-Élysées, and I will wish you good morning as I pass, perhaps. Is it fine to-day?" she went on, although she had watched both sky and pavement with impatient anxiety since early morning. And on his replying in the affirmative she said: "You can take the carriage; I will go on foot, it will do me good." They had a brougham that was hired by the month, and that they used in turns, he for business expeditions, and she for paying visits.