Perhaps, though, Florian reflected, he saw her through emotions which exaggerated every blemish unfairly. He knew all other pregnant women had seemed to him unattractive rather than actually loathsome. But here, here was the prize he had so long and fervently desired, the prize to gain which he had sacrificed those dearest to him in this world, and had parted with the comforting assurances of religion.... For, Melior, then, had flawless and unequalled beauty. So he had bought, at an exceedingly stiff price, this shining superficies, to learn almost immediately thereafter that she possessed not one other desirable quality. And now Melior had not even the thin mask of loveliness. Worse still, the beauty which he had worshipped since boyhood now existed nowhere. To purchase an hour or two of really not very remarkable entertainment, he had himself destroyed this beauty.... “My love,” said Florian, “now if only I were a conceited person, I would dare to hope that the long months since I last saw you have passed as drearily with you as with me.” He kissed her tenderly. Even the woman’s breath was now unpleasant. It seemed to Florian that nothing was being spared him. “Yes, that sort of talk is all very well,” replied Melior, fretfully. “But I do think that at a time when I have every right to expect particular attention and care, you might at least have made an effort to get home sooner, and not leave everything upon my shoulders, especially with all the neighbors everywhere pretending, whenever I come into the room, that they were not talking about your having killed your brother—” “Yes, yes, a most regrettable affair! But what, sweetheart, has been going amiss at Bellegarde?” “That is a pretty question for you to ask, with me in my condition, with all these other worries on top of it, about your friend Orléans. Because, knowing you as well as I do, Florian, and not being able to feel as you do that a prime minister is no more than a house fly or a flea,—and seeing quite well, too, how little you consider what my feelings naturally would be if they cut off your head—” “Ah, but let us take one thing at a time, and for the present leave my head where it is. Do you mean that you have been unwell, my pet?” “Have you no eyes in the head you keep talking about just to keep me upset! But I do not wonder you prefer not to look at me, now I am such a fright, and that is you men all over. Still, you might at least have the decency to remember who is responsible for it, and that much I must say.” “But, dearest, I have both the eyes about which you inquire, and in those doubtless partial orbs you happen not to look a fright. So I cannot quite follow you. No, let us be logical! There is a slight pallor, to be sure—But, no! No, dear Melior, upon the whole, I never saw you looking lovelier, and I wonder of what you are talking.” “I mean, you fool, that I am sick and miserable because now almost any day I am going to have a baby.”