Philippe was not handsome. He was small, thick-set, with a brow that bulged above the eyes, a strong jaw, a short, pointed beard, a steely blue glance. Very much master of himself, he was cold in a courteous, commanding way. Seated beside Annette at table, he followed two conversations: the general discussion that Solange was carrying on in her desultory manner and that which, in the intervals, he held with his neighbor. In both he had the same brief, precise, trenchant way of talking. Never a hesitation, either for a word or an idea. The more Annette listened, the more hostile she felt towards him. She replied, concealing herself under a rather dry and distant indifference. He did not seem to attach great importance to what she said. No doubt he was judging her from the silly eulogies he had heard from Solange. He was barely polite. This did not surprise anyone: they were used to his abrupt ways. But it irritated Annette to have to endure them. She observed him beside her, without appearing to see him, feature by feature; and she could find nothing about him that pleased her. But the total impression was not the total of her impressions of details; and when, without difficulty, she reached the end of her examination, she felt uneasy again. A movement of the hand, a wrinkling of the face. . . . She was afraid of him. And she thought, "Above everything in the world, he mustn't see into me!" Solange spoke of an author who, she said, had the gift of tears. "A pretty gift!" said Philippe. "Tears in life are not worth much. But in art I know nothing more disgusting than to collect them in a bottle." The ladies cried out at this. Madame Villard said that tears were one of the pleasures of life, and Solange said they were an ornament of the soul. "Well, how about you, don't you protest?" he asked Annette. "Do you too get your supplies from the property-man?" "I have enough of my own," she said. "I have no need of other people's." "You live on your capital?" "Can you suggest any way for me to get rid of them?" "Be hard!" "I'm learning," she replied. He threw her a brief sidelong glance. The others continued to unbosom themselves. "Look over there," said Philippe to Annette. "There's a good chap who ought to be taught it." With a corner of his eye he indicated Marc, whose mobile face was naïvely betraying the various emotions which the pretty Madame Villard, sitting beside him, stirred in him. "I'm afraid," said Annette, "that he already has too much of a tendency that way." "All the better!" "All the better for those who meet him along the way?" "Let him walk over them!" "That's easy for you to say." "You have only to step aside yourself." "That would be against nature." "Oh, no, the thing that's against nature is to love too much." "One's own child?" "Anyone, one's own child especially." "He needs me." "Look at him! Is he thinking of you? He would disown you for a crumb from my wife's hand."