The days succeeded each other with monotonous regularity. The perpetual sameness, the unvarying habits of the household, which constituted Pauline's happiness, only tended to increase Lazare's feeling of _ennui_. Never had the house affected him with such uneasy disquietude as now, when every room seemed basking in cheerful peace. The completion of the operations on the shore had proved a great relief, for enforced attention to anything had become intolerable to him, and he had no sooner fallen back into idleness than he once more became the prey of shame and anxiety. Every morning he made a fresh set of plans for the future. He had abandoned the idea of starting a newspaper as unworthy of him, and he inveighed against the poverty which prevented him from quietly devoting himself to some great literary work. He had lately become enamoured of the notion of preparing himself for a professorship, and so earning a livelihood and enabling himself to carry out his literary ambition. There no longer seemed to exist between himself and Pauline anything beyond their old feeling of comradeship, a quiet affection which made them, as it were, brother and sister. The young man never made any reference to their marriage, either because he never thought of it, or, perhaps, because he took it for granted and considered any discussion of the matter unnecessary; while the girl herself was equally reticent on the subject, feeling quite certain that her cousin would willingly acquiesce in the first suggestion of their union. And yet Lazare's passion for her was gradually diminishing; a fact of which she was quite conscious, though she did not understand that it was this alone which rendered her powerless to free him from his _ennui_. One evening, when she had gone upstairs in the dusk to tell him that dinner was ready, she surprised him in the act of hastily hiding something which she could not distinguish. 'What's that?' she asked, with a laugh. 'Some verses for my birthday?' 'No!' he replied, with much emotion and in wavering tones. 'It's nothing at all.' It was an old glove which Louise had left behind her, and which he had just discovered behind a pile of books. The glove had retained a strong odour of the original skin of which it was made, and this was softened to a musky fragrance by Louise's favourite perfume, heliotrope. Lazare, who was very susceptible to the influence of odours, was violently agitated by that scent, and in a state of emotion had lingered with the glove pressed to his lips, draining from it a draught of sweet recollections.