Marie Louise announced his presence. For how long had he been watching the young woman, whose face was framed by a large hood? She was a little offended by this indiscretion, the more so because she was hoping to see Albert, who had seemed nervous on the previous evening. So she hastened his explanation of the object of his visit: "It is you who are to be consulted, not I." He imagined a vague hostility, but was not offended by it. What he had to say he would express, at all costs, for he had resolved upon this course after much hesitation: "Well, Madame, I have to make a very serious decision now. I am touched, very deeply touched by a sentiment which has been inspired by circumstances, much more than by my personality, and the continuance of which, after having astonished me, is no longer a matter of indifference to me. At my age, it is a rare favor." "At your age?" "I am forty. Mlle. Rivière is twenty-two or twenty-three. It is certainly a rare favor, and one which I shall perhaps not experience again if I put it aside." "But why put it aside?" asked Elizabeth. And, as he did not reply, and looked at her with a curious smile, she resumed: "But why put it aside? Berthe Rivière deserves to be loved, I can assure you. The emotion of which you speak, whose power she did not at first suspect, has slowly changed her. She has seen clearly into her own consciousness. She has grown very different in two years. She is now reserved and as trustworthy as she is pretty. I should like to see her your wife." She had become animated in her enthusiasm. He looked at her as if he were weighing his words, and turned around suddenly. "Yes, but my heart is not free." She blushed while he continued, his eyes on the grass: "Only die passion that filled it and which was hopeless is purified and has become a cult, a religion." She made a motion to stop him. "Let me finish, Madame. I will never speak of these things again. And it does not only apply to me. I have often asked myself if a more human feeling could not exist side by side with that one, and satisfy the promise of happiness and fidelity with which I would reciprocate. Your religion does not keep you from loving. But would that be very loyal?" Seeing her in this peaceful frame of mind, he had, in spite of himself, changed the meaning of his explanation. Elizabeth wished to get up and send him away, that he might understand that she considered as disloyalty that indirect confession which she had been obliged to hear. She remembered that he had been the first to alter her understanding of life, and remaining seated, she forgave him for the second time. But in her reply she expressed an authority which kept him at a distance, at the same time showing him the way: "You must know yourself. This ... friendship must no longer occupy your attention. You will forget it by never again seeing her who inspired it." "By never seeing her?"