Just as Chazel seemed to have remained quite young at heart, in spite of the failure of constitution, so the other, if only in the expression of his eyes, which were very dark ones, appeared to have undergone a premature aging of soul and intellect, in spite of the energy maintained by his physical machine. The face was somewhat long and somewhat browned, like that of one in whom bile would prevail some day, the forehead without a wrinkle, the nose very refined; a slight dimple was impressed upon the square chin. It would have been impossible to assign any profession or even occupation to this man, and yet there was something superior in his nature which seemed irreconcilable with the emptiness of an absolutely idle life, as well, too, as lines of melancholy about the mouth which banished the idea of a life of nothing but pleasure. Meanwhile he continued to smoke with perfect calmness, showing every time that he rejected the smoke small, close teeth, the lower ones being set in an irregular fashion, which is, people say, a probable indication of fierceness. He watched Chazel kiss his wife on the temple, while _she_ lowered her eyelids without venturing to look at Armand; and yet, had the dark eyes of the young man been encountered by her own, she would not have surprised any trace of sorrow, but an indefinable blending of irony and curiosity. "Yes," said Alfred, replying thus to the mute reproach which Helen's countenance seemed to make to him, "it is bad form to love one's wife in public, but Armand will forgive me. Well, goodbye," he went on, holding out his hand to his friend, "I shall not be away for more than an hour. I shall find you here again, shall I not?" The young Baron and Madame Chazel thus remained alone. They were silent for a few minutes, both keeping the positions in which Alfred had left them, she standing, but this time with her eyes raised towards Armand, and the latter answering her look with a smile while he continued to wrap himself in a cloud of smoke. She breathed in the slight acridity of the smoke, half opening her fresh lips. The sound of carriage wheels became audible beneath the windows. It was the rolling of the cab that was taking Chazel away. Helen slowly advanced to the easy chair in which Armand was sitting; with a pretty gesture she took the cigarette and threw it into the fire, then knelt before the young man, encircled his head with her arms, and, seeking his lips, kissed him; it looked as though she wished to destroy immediately the painful impression which her husband's attitude might have left on the man she loved, and in a clear tone of voice, the liveliness of which discovered a free expansiveness after a lengthened constraint, she said: "How do you do, Armand. Are you in love with me to-day?" "And yourself," he questioned, "are you in love with me?"