Flora Allen looked up quickly at her pretty blonde smiling reflection in the mirror, turning her head to get the three-quarter view which was her favorite. So he was back, was he? So he was back. His dear mama must have decided that he was now old enough to protect himself from golden-haired American ladies. So he was coming back to perch on the front edge of his chair and look volumes out of those great soft eyes of his that were so shy and yet could be so expressive. He was coming back to be so nervous and moved that his shaking fingers could not hold his tea-cup, and yet so persistent that he came week after week whenever she was at home to visitors; so timid that he hadn't a word to say for himself but so bold that he often spent the entire evening, romantically sitting on the bench across the way, staring up at her windows. He was coming back after his exile in America, was he? And two years older. Well, we would see what we would see. And in the meantime Father Elie could wait. She had a singular little smile on her lips, as she turned from this item to a card from Horace, saying that business would keep him longer in Bordeaux than he had thought and he would not be back till a week from Saturday. She tossed this card with the letters on the table, and began to turn over the canary-colored books scattered on her desk. No, the volume was not there. She must have put it back long ago in the book-case. She ran her finger along the titles on a shelf near her, found it, pulled it out. With it in her hand she sank down on the chaise-longue. But before she began to read, she sat for a moment, her lips curved, remembering what was in it, and remembering how more than two years ago she had looked up from it to see Jean-Pierre Garnier for the first time. Yes.... She opened the book, fluttered the pages, read a little here and there; and then, as if slowly drawn by an undertow, sank into the book, with a long breath. After a time Jeanne let herself in, stood for an instant in the door, despising her mistress, and passed on to Marise's room. But the novel-reader heard nothing, drowned deep in the book, reading very slowly, her eyes dwelling long on every word. "... I wakened, thinking I heard my name called, slipped out of bed and went to the window. The moon poured liquid silver upon the garden, and there in the midst of it stood Urbain, slim and young as a lady's page, his soft eyes glittering like jewels. With a bound he leaped up towards me, and found a foot-hold on the rough stones of the old wall, so that he stood beside me with only the low window-sill between us. He took my hand in his. He was trembling like a leaf. He looked at me imploringly."