Before long her life was so filled that not much of it remained for Annette. Whatever happened, Sylvie guarded Annette's share; she clung to it. But for Annette's heart, a share was little. She did not know how to give herself in halves, or thirds, or quarters. She still had to learn that in their affections people are like a small merchant: they deliver them retail. She was long in understanding this, still longer in accepting it. As yet she had not passed beyond the first lessons. Without saying so, she suffered at seeing herself eliminated, little by little, from Sylvie's days. Sylvie was never alone any more, at home or in her shop. She had acquired a new sweetheart. Annette bowed to the inevitable. Her love for her sister now defended her against her old jealous spite and severity of judgment. But it did not defend her against melancholy. Sylvie, who, despite her lightness, loved her sister well enough to sense the pain she was causing her, would occasionally tear herself away from the farandole of her activities, both business and pleasure; and suddenly, in the midst of work or even a tête-à-tête, she would drop the most pressing matters and run off to Annette's. Then there was a whirlwind of passing tenderness. At the moment, Sylvie was no less full of affection than Annette. But it passed; and when the whirlwind carried Sylvie back to her business or her pleasures, filled with Annette, Annette would sigh, grateful for the little tempest of loving chatter, mad confidences, and laughing embraces that had visited her, but feeling more alone than ever and more troubled. Yet it was not interests that she lacked. Her days were as full as Sylvie's. Her life, her double life, intellectual and social, that had been broken off since her father's death, had resumed its natural course. Her mental needs, which during the past year had been crowded aside by the needs of her heart, had now reawakened stronger than ever. As much to fill the hours left empty by Sylvie's absence, as because the intelligence of a rich nature is matured by experiences of the passional life, she had again applied herself to her scientific studies, and she was astonished to find that she brought to them a clearer gaze than before. She became interested in biology, and planned a thesis on the origins of the æsthetic sentiment and its manifestations in nature.