Was it indeed the woman who, when I last saw her, had not dared to raise her veil, as if she were afraid I should see the traces on her pale cheeks of Tournade’s caresses? Yes, it was the same woman who now received me laughing in insolent bravado with not a trace of embarrassment; and she was still beautiful, adorably beautiful, with her fine and delicate beauty, which I believe would never have deserted her whatever her surroundings; but she was now so provoking, so shameless! Not a word, not a blush, not a falter betrayed that she felt any emotion at seeing in me the witness of what must remain to her a perpetual memory. She lit, while she listened to me, an Egyptian cigarette of tobacco the colour of her hair, and smoked it, exhaling the bluish smoke through her delicate nostrils, with wide open eyes between her eyelashes which had been slightly eaten away by the crayon she used. Her mouth looked too red from the rouge of the night before; her cheeks were fuller and her throat was larger; and her more opulent lips were defined by a dressing-gown which was a costume of blue stuff worked and embroidered with silver. I began as a matter of politeness by giving her a brief account of my travels, my work and my return; then I broached the real object of my visit, and I conveyed to her brutally, without evasion, Molan’s proposal. “Is he cad enough!” she said shrugging her supple shoulders. “Is he cad enough!” For a moment I hoped that a nausea of disgust would prove to me that the old Camille was not dead. But no, she went on after a brief silence: “If there is really a fine part for me, tell him to send or bring me the play. He is so very clever when he is clever! Have you read the play? Is he satisfied with it? You know I am really in need of a fine part. So is he, for since he has become wealthy, he is allowing himself to be forgotten. Between the two of us I will answer for its success: his prose is so tender and I interpret it so well!” Not a vestige of indignation did she feel, that indignation I had felt at knowing that the sorrowful romance of her irreparable downfall was profaned! Hardly a vestige of malice did she show against Jacques, that malice he himself expected! From her clear eyes which retained the colour, the transparent purity, of the days of her innocence, I now saw her smile at the fine part, as I had seen Jacques smile on the subject of the play. Then it was I really understood the reason I should never be a great artist. For them—for him as I have always known him, for her as she has become after her first experience, their entire life, hearts included, is only an opportunity for producing the special act they have to produce, the precious secretion which they make, as the bee does honey, as the spider does its web, by an instinct blind and ferocious as all instincts are.