This new festival of love was vain, on account of her sensibility. Leonor, astonished by a coldness which he imagined he had overcome for ever, attributed it to a failure of tenderness. He knew that women only palpitate with the men they adore, but he thought that they ought always to palpitate. He did He did not know that there are women who, their whole life long, pursue the delirious sensations which they are doomed never to find again. He imagined therefore, that he was no longer loved, and he was bitter, for men are readily bitter when their mistress's exaltation is too moderate. Hortense wept. "Oh, my dream, my beautiful dream!" Her tenderness had, however, in no way diminished. Leonor had to admit it as he received contritely Hortense's poignant kisses. He asked her pardon, humiliated himself, and for a moment she was happy in the caresses of her lover, but she was still whispering to herself, "Oh, my dream, my beautiful dream!" After her departure, Leonor coldly informed his landlady that he did not mean to come back; then after a long tedious wait in an inn parlour, he returned to Barnavast. A letter awaited him, pressing him to come. M. Des Boys begged him, with a kind of anxiety, to fix the day on which they could come and fetch him. Leonor would have liked, however, to devote some few days to meditation. He had a question to answer, "Does she love me?" "We shall not meet again at Carentan, that is decided. Besides, it was absurd. What a place to make love in! Her failure was due to her repugnance for the surroundings. It was a sign of her refinement of feeling. And then women have no imagination. To me, everything is a palace; the woman I adore would light up a hovel.... Does she love me?" But it was in vain that he repeated the question, he could find no answer. "What a fool I am! I shall see well enough next time. I continue to love her. She is beautiful, she is obedient.... But is that the aim of my life? Suppose she were given me for my own?" But to this question he could think of no answer either. Hortense, at the same moment, in the old room she had had before she was married, was going to sleep, sighing, "Oh, my dream, my beautiful dream!" CHAPTER XVI