If she had been prudent she would at least have avoided occasions for coming in contact with it. But she was too much alive to be prudent. People are only prudent when they have suffered from not being so. Human nature is so made that Annette, who contemptuously turned her back on the judgment of the world, burned to know what people were saying behind her back. And, dreading every morning that the day would not pass without bringing her the echo of some disturbing remark, she was ready to go out in search of them when no such remarks came. She was spared the trouble. From her family, from her cousins of both sexes, with whom she maintained only the most distant connection, she received scandalized letters and lectures that she could hardly endure. Their claim to pose as judges of her conduct and champions of the family honor should have seemed less irritating than grotesque to one who, like Annette, had been only too well informed by her father about the secret history of the family and knew how to take the measure of these Aristarchuses. But Annette was in no laughing mood: she would seize her pen and send off a biting reply, which added spite to their other motives for condemning her and rendered the latter implacable. These austere censors could invoke as an excuse for their intervention the much abused but still customary rights of relationship. But what rights did strangers have to be severe with her, strangers who were not harmed in any way because she did as she chose with herself? Meeting in the street some amiable society woman in whose drawing-room she had once been received, she would stop to exchange a few civil words. The other, looking her over curiously and letting her talk, scarcely answering herself, would presently pass on with a cold politeness. One woman, to whom Annette had written asking for some information, did not reply. Pursuing her inquiry, Annette wrote to a friend of her mother's, an old lady whom she respected and who had shown some affectionate feeling for herself; she suggested going to see her. In reply came an embarrassed letter, expressing regret that the latter was unable to receive her: she was leaving Paris. These little constantly repeated affronts wounded Annette's sensibility. She was afraid of other rebuffs, but the strange thing was that this fear led her nervously to provoke them. For example, in the case of her friend Lucile Cordier. The two young women had known each other for a long time. In the society where they moved Lucile was the person whom Annette liked best; and without being very intimate they had always enjoyed seeing each other. Annette learned from her aunt that Lucile's sister was going to be married. She had had no word of this from Lucile. She wrote to congratulate her. Lucile remained silent. Annette knew she ought not to insist. And yet she did insist, through a strange need of being sure, of suffering.