Genevieve would have braved her father’s anger, the world’s opinion and its contempt, but at Lafcadio’s icy tones, her heart fails her. Has he not understood, then, that to come and speak to him like this at night, to confess her love to him like this, requires courage and resolution on her part too, and that her love deserves more, maybe, than a mere “thank you”?... But how can she tell him that she too, up till to-day, has been living and moving in a dream--a dream from which she escapes only now and then among her poor children at the hospital, where, binding up their wounds in sober earnestness, she does seem sometimes to be brought into contact with a little reality--a petty dream, in which her parents move beside her, hedged in by all the ludicrous conventions of their world--and that she can never succeed in taking any of it seriously, either their behaviour or their opinions, or their ambitions or their principles, or indeed, their persons themselves? What wonder, then, that Lafcadio had not taken Fleurissoire seriously? Oh! is it possible that they should part like this? Love drives her, flings her towards him. Lafcadio seizes her, clasps her, covers her pale forehead with kisses. * * * * * Here begins a new book. Oh, desire! Oh, palpable and living truth! At your touch the phantoms of my brain grow dim and vanish. We will leave our two lovers at cockcrow, at the hour when colour, warmth and light begin at last to triumph over night. Lafcadio raises himself from over Genevieve’s sleeping form. But it is not at his love’s fair face, nor her moist brows, nor pearly eyelids, nor warm parted lips, nor perfect breasts, nor weary limbs--no, it is at none of all this that he gazes--but through the wide-open window, at the coming of dawn and a tree that rustles in the garden. It will soon be time for Genevieve to leave him; but still he waits; leaning over her, he listens above her gentle breathing to the vague rumour of the town as it begins to shake off its torpor. From the distant barracks a bugle’s call rings out. What! is he going to renounce life? Does he still, for the sake of Genevieve’s esteem (and already he esteems her a little less now that she loves him a little more), does he still think of giving himself up? A NOTE ON THE TYPE IN WHICH THIS BOOK IS SET