She was more beautiful than ever, and her first exclamation on seeing him was intended to be flattering: “Ah! Fred, how much you have improved! But what a change! What an extraordinary change! Why, look at him! He is still himself, but who would have thought it was Fred!” He was not disconcerted, for he had acquired aplomb in his journeys round the globe, but he gave her a glance of sad reproach, while Madame de Nailles said, quietly: “Yes, really--How are you, Fred? The tan on your face is very becoming to you. You have broadened at the shoulders, and are now a man--something more than a man, an experienced sailor, almost an old seadog.” And she laughed, but only softly, because a frank laugh would have shown little wrinkles under her eyes and above her cheeks, which were getting too large. Her toilette, which was youthful, yet very carefully adapted to her person, showed that she was by no means as yet “laid on the shelf,” as Raoul Wermant elegantly said of her. She stood up, leaning over a table covered with toys, which it was her duty to sell at the highest price possible, for the place of a meeting so full of emotions for Fred was a charity bazaar. The moment he arrived in Paris the young officer had been, so to speak, seized by the collar. He had found a great glazed card, bidding him to attend this fair, in a fashionable quarter, and forthwith he had forgotten his resolution of not going near the Nailles for a long time. “This is not the same thing,” he said to himself. “One must not let one’s self be supposed to be stingy.” So with these thoughts he went to the bazaar, very glad in his secret heart to have an excuse for breaking his resolution.