After a fortnight's patience Ligny urged her to resume their former intercourse. The period which she herself had fixed had elapsed. He would not wait any longer. She suffered as much as he did in refusing herself to him. But she dreaded to see the dead man return. She found lame excuses for postponing appointments; at last she confessed that she was afraid. He despised her for displaying so little common sense and courage. He no longer felt that she loved him, and he spoke harshly to her, but he pursued her incessantly with his desire. Bitter days and barren hours followed. As she no longer dared to seek the shelter of a roof in his company, they used to take a cab, and after driving for hours about the outskirts of the city they would alight in some gloomy avenue, wandering far down it under the bitter east wind, walking swiftly, as though chastised by the breath of an unseen wrath. Once, however, the weather was so mild that it filled them with its soft languor. Side by side they trod the deserted paths of the Bois de Boulogne. The buds, which were beginning to swell on the tips of the slender black branches, dyed the tree-tops violet under the rosy sky. To their left stretched the fields, dotted with clumps of leafless trees, and the houses of Auteuil were visible. Slowly driven coupes, with their elderly passengers, crawled along the road, and the wet-nurses pushed their perambulators. A motor-car broke the silence of the Bois with its humming. "Do you like those machines?" asked Felicie. "I find them convenient, that's all." It was true that he was no chauffeur. He had no taste for any kind of sport; he concerned himself only with women. Pointing to a cab which had just passed them, she exclaimed: "Robert, did you see?" "No." "Jeanne Perrin was in it with a woman." And, as he displayed a calm indifference, she added in a reproachful tone: "You are like Dr. Socrates. Do you think that sort of thing natural?" The lake slept, bright and serene, within its sombre walls of pines. They took the path to their right, which skirted the bank where the white geese and swans were preening their feathers. At their approach a flotilla of ducks, like living hulls, their necks curving like prows, set sail toward them. Felicie told them, in a regretful tone, that she had nothing to give them.