“No,” she said with a pretty, sad smile, which displayed her fine mouth and made a dimple in her pale cheek, “I know him too well to think that. He told you that I loved him, and he was right. All the same, it is good of you to want me to think that he speaks tenderly of me. I repeat to you that I shall be very quiet. I shall not try to question you. After all, this story about Fomberteau is not an impossible one. It would have been very simple though for him to have wished me good-bye first. I had looked forward so to his escort this evening.” We were in the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin when she said this, and it was followed by a long silence. Women who love are unconsciously cruel. But how could I expect her not to regret her lover to me when all her charm was in her spontaneity and the untouched ingenuousness of her nature? Then I began to be in love with her, and this conversation, seen when talking of some one else, enfolded me and intoxicated me with that enchantment of the beloved presence which is in itself a pleasure. The warmth of her arm in mine made my blood flow to my heart. In what a discreet pose this pretty arm leant upon mine, but with a reserve so different from the abandon of love! But her step instinctively kept time with mine. We kept in step as we walked, and this fusion of our movements, by making me feel the light rhythm of her body, revealed to me, too, that though she knew very little of me, she had perfect confidence in me. I experienced extreme pleasure at the sudden intimacy, so complete and so devoid of coquetry; my self-respect had one more idea of humiliation than hers had of pretence over her relations with my comrade. By what mysterious magic of second sight had she divined at once that I would be for her with Molan precisely the advocate she needed, and also that she could express her feelings in my presence in full sincerity?