She saw in her mind’s eye the speeding car, and seemed to feel the cold wind that smells of marshes, waste resin, burnt grass, mint, and mist. She looked at Bernard and smiled that smile that made the women of her country say in former days: “You can’t pretend she’s pretty, but then she is so charming.” If Bernard had said: “I forgive you; come ...” she would have got up and followed him. But Bernard, after a momentary feeling of irritation at his own emotion, was now only conscious of his detestation of anything odd, anything that departed from the daily round of behaviour and conversation. Bernard was made to fit the tracks, like his own carts; he could not move outside the ruts: and only when he had found them again, that very evening in the dining-room at Saint Clair, would he find peace and quiet once more. “I want to ask your pardon for the last time, Bernard.” She spoke with great earnestness and with the intonation of despair,--a last effort to reopen the conversation: “Say no more,” he protested. “You will feel very lonely: though I am away, there is still my empty place: it would have been better for you if I had died.” He shrugged his shoulders slightly, and in a tone of something like joviality, begged her not to worry herself about him: “Every generation of the Desqueyroux family has had its old bachelor, and I was meant for one of them. I have all the necessary qualities--you’d be the last to deny that, wouldn’t you? I am only sorry that we had a daughter, because the family name will die out. It is true that even if we had stayed together, we should not have wanted another child,--so all is really for the best. Don’t get up: stay where you are.” He hailed a taxi, and came back to remind Thérèse that he had paid for the drinks. * * * * * She stared for a long time at the dregs of port at the bottom of Bernard’s glass; and then once more began to watch the passers-by. A few seemed to be walking up and down waiting for someone. One woman turned back twice, and smiled at Thérèse: she looked like a work girl, or she was disguised as one. It was the hour when the girls came out of the dressmakers’ shops. It did not occur to Thérèse to move: she was perfectly content and not in the least depressed. She decided not to go and see Jean Azévédo that afternoon,--and heaved a sigh of relief: she did not want to see him. More talk--more formulæ and phrases! She knew Jean Azévédo; but those whose company she wanted, she did not know: she was merely certain that they would not insist on conversation. Thérèse was no longer afraid of solitude. She was content to remain silent and still: and just as, if her body had been lying stretched out upon a heath in her own country, ants and crows would have gathered round it, so here she felt herself the centre of some dark activity that eddied about her.