Although she had been told of his visit, she turned round, blushing. The bells went on ringing. This return to his house took an importance which he had not foreseen. They were both thinking of the early days of their marriage. "My work and you," he said to her then. She had understood too late, the happiness which she had not appreciated. Quickly composing herself, she assumed a happy tone to bid him welcome. He would have preferred her to have been less at ease, and even somewhat constrained. "Let us go in to luncheon," she said almost at once, as if she had no doubt as to his acceptance, which was the best way of surmounting the difficulty. As the dining-room faced the south, the window could be left open without inconvenience. It looked out on the meadows and pine woods of Chamrousse. Albert was seated opposite all this verdure. Nothing predisposes one more to peace and well-being, than the simple meals one enjoys in the country, while listening to the sound of running water, and the light rustling of the branches, swayed by the wind: evidences of the harmonious life of all things. And how well Elizabeth had been able to evade the difficulties of so embarrassing a return! In the afternoon, when he expressed his intention of going, she did not keep him back, and he was surprised. She did not even seem to listen to Marie Louise, who talked of accompanying her father to the Castle of Saint-Ferriol. She had really treated him as a guest, with the tact of a woman who knows how to receive visitors, and to hide her pleasure or her boredom: that was, at any rate, the new impression that he took away with him. Perhaps she had tired of waiting for him, and no longer cared about a reconciliation. He was not very far from the truth. Elizabeth, in two and a half years, had accomplished such an endless series of efforts, had so eagerly desired an outcome, that she had reached that state of apparent unconcern, in which everything becomes the same to us, we need no longer reproach ourselves, nor have we any reserve strength. Now, whatever happened, might happen. She would attempt nothing more. Her failure in Paris had destroyed her moral energy which she had acquired through so much sorrow. He returned on the following Sunday, accompanied, without his knowledge, by the whole staff of the Tabourin office. The pretext of this second visit was that he had not broached the subject of the children on the preceding Sunday, nor did he speak of it this time. Later he came several times a week. "You are only half a papa," his daughter said to him. "Half a papa?" "Yes, you come in the morning and go away in the evening like the day boarders at the convent." One day a tradesman's bill had been presented while he was there. With haste, and yet embarrassment, he showed such an eagerness to pay it, that Elizabeth did not protest. And this new share in her household, which was a pleasure to her, brought him a little closer to her.