"Those who don't do one or the other are terribly bored in society, or bore other people terribly. I am not a salon conversationalist myself. I am not yet so hollow that I can procure a hearing without saying anything. Tell me, Thérèse, do you want me to take a plunge into society at our risk?" "Not yet," said Thérèse; "be patient a little longer. Alas! I was not prepared to lose you so soon!" The sorrowful accent and heart-broken glance irritated Laurent more than usual. "You know," he said, "that you always bring me around to your wishes with the slightest complaint, and you abuse your power, my poor Thérèse. Don't you think you will be sorry for it some day, when you find me ill and exasperated?" "I am sorry for it already, since I weary you," she replied. "So do what you choose!" "Then you abandon me to my fate? Are you already weary of the struggle? Look you, my dear, it is you who no longer love me!" "From the tone in which you say that, it seems to me that you wish that it should be so!" He answered _no_, but, a moment later, his every word said _yes_. Thérèse was too serious, too proud, too modest. She was unwilling to descend with him from the heights of the empyrean. A hasty word seemed to her an insult, a trivial reminiscence incurred her censure. She was sober in everything, and had no comprehension of capricious appetites, of extravagant fancies. She was the better of the two, unquestionably, and if compliments were what she must have, he was ready with them; but was it a matter of compliments between them? Was not the important thing to devise some means of living together? Formerly, she was more cheerfully inclined, she had been _coquettish_ with him, and she was no longer willing to be; now, she was like a sick bird on its perch, with feathers rumpled, head between its shoulders, and lifeless eye. Her pale, dismal face was enough to frighten one sometimes. In that huge, dark room, made depressing by the remains of former splendor, she produced the effect of a ghost upon him. At times, he was really afraid of her. Could she not fill that gloomy void with strange songs and joyous peals of laughter? "Come; what shall we do to shake off this deathly chill that freezes one's shoulders? Sit down at the piano and play me a waltz. I will waltz all by myself. Do you know how to waltz? I'll wager that you don't. You don't know anything that isn't lugubrious!" "Come," said Thérèse, rising, "let us leave this place at once, let come what may! You will go mad here. It may be worse elsewhere; but I will go through with my task to the end." At that, Laurent lost his temper. So it was a task that she had imposed on herself? So she was simply performing a duty in cold blood? Perhaps she had taken a vow to the Virgin to consecrate her lover to her! All that she lacked now was to turn nun!