This alternation of situations is like a phantasmagoria in which judgment is warped. To have withstood such a shock Madam Favier must have been absolutely, as her youthful smile, her fresh cheeks, and the harmonious lines of her face showed her to be, a simple creature tranquil in her positivism, and quite the opposite of this girl whose future she foresaw as she would have foreseen the future of a son who had joined the army. Her steps from the Conservatoire to the Odéon, Vaudeville and Comédie Française were fixed in this good woman’s mind with a regularity which was the more astonishing because her education had been such as to make her think of another type of destiny for a woman. How had such a revolution been accomplished in her mind? Is it necessary to explain that there are certain natures whose primordial instinct is to model themselves on circumstances, just as the instinct of others is to struggle and rebel against them? The latter case was that of the poor Blue Duchess. This essential difference between their two characters had prevented any real intimacy between the two women. They had not and could not have real intercourse. I realized this only too well when after ten minutes conversation with her mother, I saw Camille enter with a pale face and eyes red from weeping, for her trouble was so obvious, and yet her mother never even, suspected it! “It is your turn to try on now, mother,” she said. “We will wait for you. M. la Croix has a few minutes to spare us I am sure.” But when the good lady had shut the door she said “Have you seen Jacques?” “I called on him this morning,” I replied. “Then you know that I am aware of everything?” “I know you wrote to Fomberteau,” I replied evasively. “You know, too, your friend’s answer, when I asked for an explanation of his deception? He has sent you to find out for him what impression his infamous note has produced upon me? Now, confess that is so, it will be more straightforward.” “Why do you judge me to be like that, mademoiselle?” I said, displaying grief which she could see was sincere, for she looked at me in astonishment, while even I was surprised at my own words: “You were more just to me. You understand that sometimes silence is neither an approbation nor a complicity. It is true that Jacques did not conceal his sorry scheme nor his note from me. I did not hide from him what I thought of his harshness, and if I come here it is of my own accord, under the impulse of a sympathy which I admit I have no right to feel. We have only been friends for twenty-four hours and yet I feel that sympathy. You spoke to me with such a noble outpouring of the heart, with such touching confidence that henceforth, I thought, we cannot be strangers. I felt that you were unhappy and I came to you simply and naturally. If it was an indiscretion you have thoroughly punished me for it.”