Her instinct did not deceive her. For such a nature, filled with passions, desires, blind sensuality, there is no such thing as innocent pleasure, there is no play without consequences. The least shock would deliver her over to forces of which she was no longer the mistress. She had known long before the moral perturbation caused by her brief, passing encounters with love. The dangers would be very different to-day! She would no longer resist. If she gave herself up to pleasure, she would be utterly swept away by it; she would lose the faith she needed. . . . What faith? Faith in herself. Pride? No. Faith in that inexplicable, that divine something that was within her and that she wanted to transmit unsullied to her son. Such a woman has no choice, outside the strict discipline of marriage, between an absolute moral restraint and the frankest abandonment to her passionate instincts. Everything or nothing. . . . Nothing! And yet, at moments--in spite of her transports of proud fervor--for several months this agonizing thought gripped her by the throat: "I am wasting my life." Marcel Franck reappeared. Chance threw him in Annette's path; he had ceased to think of her, but he had not forgotten her. He had had a number of amorous adventures. They had not left too many marks on his flexible heart--only a few lines, like fine scratches, about his clever eyes. But they had left him with a certain fatigue, a good-natured contempt for his easy conquests and for the conqueror. Scarcely had he caught sight of Annette than he felt again the old sensation of freshness and certitude that strangely attracted this blasé sceptic. He explored her eyes; she too had seen life! In the depths of her glance there were submerged lights, paths where vessels had been, shipwrecks. But she seemed calmer and more assured. And he again regretted this wholesome companion who had already escaped him twice. He was not too late! Never had they seemed more ready to understand each other. Without questioning her, he was able to find out in his own circumspect way about her resources and her occupations. A little later he offered her some work that was very well remunerated: it consisted in arranging notes for the catalogue of a private collection of works of art of which he had charge. A natural excuse for spending a few hours each week with her. They were able to work and talk at the same time. The intimacy of the past was soon reëstablished.