Husband and wife were astonished that their relations were so little constrained. Thérèse reflected that people become endurable as soon as we are sure we can get away from them. Bernard was interested in Thérèse’s weight,--but also in her conversation. She spoke more freely in his company than she had ever done: “In Paris ... when I am in Paris ...” she would begin: she would live in a hotel and perhaps look for a flat. She would take up a course of study, and go to lectures and concerts; “begin her education all over again.” Bernard never thought of watching her, and ate his soup and drank his wine, quite unconcerned. Doctor Pédemay, who sometimes met them on the Argelouse road, said to his wife: “What is so amazing is that they don’t look as if they were acting.” CHAPTER XIII On a warm morning in March, about ten o’clock, the stream of humanity had begun to move, and was already surging against the Café de la Paix outside which Bernard and Thérèse were sitting. She threw away her cigarette, and carefully stamped it out, as people from the Landes always do. “Are you afraid of setting fire to the pavement?” Bernard laughed constrainedly. He was annoyed with himself for having accompanied Thérèse to Paris. As it was so soon after Anne’s marriage he had, of course, done so out of deference to public opinion,--but mainly because his wife had wished it. He told himself she had a positive flair for false situations: so long as she remained in his life, he was always in danger of being manœuvred into doing foolish things of this kind; the wretched woman still had some sort of influence even on a solid and self-respecting person like himself. At the very moment of parting, he could not resist a feeling of sadness, which he would never have admitted: nothing could have been more foreign to his character than an emotion of this kind, inspired by any one; but inspired by Thérèse,--it was inconceivable. He was so impatient to be rid of all disturbing influences! He would not breathe freely until he was in the train going South. The car would meet him that evening at Langon: and on the Villandraut road, almost immediately outside the station, the pines began. He watched Thérèse’s profile, and her eyes that sometimes fixed upon a face in the crowd and followed it until it disappeared; and he said abruptly: “Thérèse ... I wanted to ask you....” He turned his eyes away,--he had never been able to withstand her look, and went on hurriedly: “I should like to know ... was it because you hated me ... because you couldn’t bear the sight of me?...”