He and his wife went up in the elevator without even glancing at the beautiful flowers with which Pierre had embellished the vases. He had beautified the conjugal chamber of Olivier and Berthe in the way he would have liked the room to be decorated which he would have shared with Ely. Left alone breathing the voluptuous aroma of mimosa mingled with roses and narcissus, he looked through the window across the clear afternoon landscape, the Esterels, the sea, and the islands. The little sunny chamber, quiet and attractive, was a veritable home for kisses with such perfumes and such a view. And yet Olivier's first idea had been to go and seek two separate rooms! This little fact added to the other remarks, and, above all, to his involuntary, intuitive conclusions, made Hautefeuille become meditative. A comparison between the passionate joy of his sweet romance and the strange coldness of this young household again arose in his mind. He recalled the first night of real love, that night in heavenly intimacy on the yacht. He remembered the second night, the one Ely and he had passed at Genoa. How sweet it had been to slumber a brief moment, his head resting upon the bosom of his beloved mistress. He thought of the very preceding evening when Ely had yielded to his supplications to allow him to visit her that night at the Villa Helmholtz, and he had glided into the garden by means of an unprotected slope. At the hothouse he found the door open with his mistress awaiting him. She had taken him to her room by a spiral staircase which led to the little salon and which only she used. Ah! What passionate kisses they had exchanged under the influence of the double emotions of Love and Danger! This time he left the room with despair and heartburning. He had returned alone, along the deserted roads, under the stars, dreaming of flight with her, with his beloved, of flight to some distant spot, to live with her forever, husband living with his wife! Could it be that Olivier had not the same sentiments toward his young wife; that he could forego that right to rest upon her adored heart all the night and every night? Could he forego that precious right, the most precious of all, of passing all the night and every night, half the year to the end of the year, half a lifetime to the end of life, with her pressed close to him? Could he renounce the ecstasy of her presence when, with her dress, the woman had put off her social existence to become once again the simple, true being, beautified only with her youth, with her love, to become only the confiding, tender, all-renouncing creature that no other sees? But if they loved each other so little after so short a married life, had he ever really loved her? And if he had never really loved her, why had he married her?--Pierre had got to this point in his reflections when he was abruptly aroused by a hand being laid upon his shoulder. Olivier was again standing before him, this time alone.