“She’s fallen in love with the Azévédo boy: can you believe it? Yes, really; that consumptive fellow for whom they were enlarging Vilméja.... She says she’ll wait until she’s of age.... Mother says she is completely mad. I only hope the Deguilhems don’t know anything about it. Young Deguilhem would be quite capable of giving up the marriage altogether. Have you got letters from her? Now we shall know all about it then: aren’t you going to open them?” “I want to read them in order. Besides, I couldn’t show them to you.” This was just like her: she complicated everything. However, the essential point was that she should bring the girl to her senses again. “My parents are relying on you. She’ll do anything you tell her.... Oh yes, she will.... You can save the situation.” While she was dressing, he would go out to send a telegram and book two seats on the Southern Express: and she might begin to pack the trunks. “Why aren’t you reading the child’s letters? What are you waiting for?” “I’m waiting till you have gone.” Long after he had shut the door Thérèse had remained lying on the sofa smoking cigarettes, and staring at the great letters of blackened gilt, fixed to the balcony opposite: then she had torn open the first envelope. No: it could not be that sweet little fool, that light-headed little Convent girl who had conceived these words of flame. It could not be that chilly little heart,--for such it was, and Thérèse ought to know!--which had poured forth that Song of Songs, that long ecstatic lamentation of a woman possessed, of a body almost stricken down with joy, from the first encounter. “_... When I met him, I could not believe it was he: he was chasing one of the dogs and shouting. How could I have imagined it was the invalid ... but he isn’t an invalid: he is simply taking precautions, because of his family history. He isn’t even delicate,--only rather thin: and of course he’s used to being spoilt and pampered ... you would not recognise me: I actually go and fetch his overcoat as soon as it gets cooler._” If Bernard had come back into the room that minute, he would have noticed that the woman sitting on the bed was not his wife, but some one he did not know, a strange and nameless creature. She threw away her cigarette, and tore open a second envelope.