He had reached this stage in his meditations, when he felt a hand laid on his shoulder. It was the hand of Armand, who had just come in. But Alfred's absorption had been too great to admit of his being disturbed by the noise of the door. The young baron was wearing a handsome morning jacket of black quilted silk, light trousers, and thin patent leather shoes, while all about him there floated the fresh odour of a scent which Alfred suddenly recognised. This same delicate aroma was diffused around her by his wife in the morning hours when she went about in those loose dresses which best indicated the suppleness of the lines of her person. The fact that Helen and Armand made use of the same perfume was sufficient, in Alfred's present condition of soul, to make the soothing influence of youthful memories give way once more to the indefinable, the vague and torturing suspicion of the night before. He looked at his friend, but the latter seemed to be occupied solely with the preparations for his breakfast. The valet had wheeled a little movable table up to the fire, and arranged upon it a silver urn, a cup, slices of toast, butter and honey. "Another cup for Monsieur Chazel," said Armand. "Monsieur Alfred has refused already," said the servant. "Then you will allow me," Armand resumed in a cheerful tone. Sitting down, he poured the black tea into the cup, and then the hot water, calculating the proportion between them just as though his friend had not been present. Was this the attitude of a man who had a secret to conceal? "No," said Alfred to himself, "if there were any mystery between Helen and him, my visit would put him out, he would want to know the reason of it. Are you not astonished," he went on aloud, "to see me so early in the morning?" putting his question with that incapacity for dissimulation which is characteristic of very sincere people, and which causes them almost involuntarily to continue outwardly and verbally their inmost thoughts. "I suppose you have some little service to ask of me," replied the other, "and I am quite ready to perform it." Then to himself: "Poor Alfred is too ingenuous. He wants to know why I am not astonished. Well, I certainly ought to be so, and should be expecting a question from him about Helen--what else could it be about? She would not believe me when I told her that he was growing jealous. Well, we'll lie as well as we can, since so much is due to her and he buttered a slice of toast, not without a certain melancholy at this necessity for lying, for he had preserved the haughtiness of personal pride which so often outlives true loftiness of feeling. "Yes," Alfred resumed, in a tone of voice the seriousness of which revealed how deeply he felt the present interview, "you are my friend--my friend. Yes, I believe it, I know it."