She had dropped the weapon and she struggled no more. The nervous reaction had set in. She fell now, sobbing and prostrated, at Annette's feet: she was in hysterics. From the first Annette had suspected intuitively that Noémi was acting a part . . . up to a certain point. (But does one ever know just to what point?) And she had been dully irritated by this nonsense about suicide. . . . But how could she doubt the suffering of this poor little broken thing? She struggled to remain hard, to turn away, but she could not; she was ashamed of her suspicions and, with her heart full of pity, she knelt down by Noémi, lifted up her head, tried to console her, saying maternally, "My child. . . . Come, come! . . ." She took her in her strong arms and raised her up. She felt this young body, shaken by sobs, abandoning itself, defenceless, and she thought, "Is it possible that I am the one who causes this suffering?" Another voice said to her, "Would you not buy your love at the cost of any amount of suffering?" "My own suffering, yes." "Your own and other people's. Why should the others be privileged?" She looked at Noémi as she held her, half-fainting. . . . So light! . . . A bird! . . . It seemed to her that she was her daughter and, without quite meaning to do so, she pressed her in her arms. Noémi opened her eyes and Annette thought, "If she were in my place would she spare me?" But Noémi turned towards her a broken look. Annette laid her in her _chaise longue_, and, standing beside her, placed her hand on her head. (Noémi shivered at the hateful contact, but she did not show it.) She asked her, as if she were addressing a weeping child, "So you love him very much?" "I love nothing but him." "I, too, love him." Noémi gave a jealous start. "Oh," she said harshly, "but I am young. You, you" (she hesitated), "you have had your life, you can get on without him." Annette repeated to herself, bitterly, the words she had not uttered: "It is because I shall soon be old that I cling to this last hour of youth, this supreme light, and will not give it up. . . . Ah! If I had the treasure of youth before me as you have!" But she added, sadly, "I should make a mess of it a second time, I suppose." Noémi had seen Annette's face darken and she was afraid she had imperilled the frail advantages she had just gained. She said hastily, "I know quite well that he loves you, that you are beautiful"--("Liar!" thought Annette)--"that you are superior to me in many things that he likes. I cannot even hate you because, in spite of everything, I love you"--("Liar! Liar!" repeated Annette)--"The match is not equal. It isn't fair! No . . . I am only a poor, weeping woman. I don't amount to anything. I know it. . . . But I love him, I love him, I can't live without him. What do you think will become of me if you take him away? Why did he love me once if it was only to abandon me? I can't endure it. He is my whole life. Everything else is nothing to me."