It must be said that since his arrival at Bordeaux, Canolles had undergone all the torture of unrequited love. He had seen the viscountess courted and caressed and flattered, while he himself was forbidden to devote himself to her, and had to take what comfort he could in an occasional glance bestowed upon him by Claire when the gossips were looking the other way. After the scene in the underground passage, after the passionate words they had exchanged at that critical moment, the existing state of things seemed to him to denote something worse than lukewarmness on her part. But, as he felt sure that beneath her cold exterior she concealed a real and deep affection for him, he looked upon himself as the most to be pitied of all happy lovers that ever lived. His frame of mind is easily understood. By virtue of the promise he had been made to give, that he would carry on no correspondence with the outside world, he had relegated Nanon to that little corner of the conscience which is set aside for the accommodation of that variety of remorse. As he heard nothing of her, and consequently was spared the ennui caused by tangible reminders of the woman to whom one is unfaithful, his remorse was not altogether unbearable. And yet, sometimes, just when the most jovial of smiles overspread the young man's features, when his voice was heard giving utterance to some bright and witty remark, a cloud would suddenly pass across his brow, and a sigh would escape from his lips at least, if not from his heart. The sigh was for Nanon; the cloud was the memory of the past casting its shadow over the present. Madame de Cambes had remarked these moments of melancholy; she had sounded the depths of Canolles' heart, and it seemed to her that she could not leave him thus abandoned to his own resources. Between an old love which was not altogether extinct, and a new passion which might spring up in his heart, it was possible that his surplus ardor, which was formerly expended upon the proper performance of his military duties and the functions of his responsible position, might tend to check the growth of the pure flame which she sought to inspire. Moreover she simply desired to gain time until the memory of so many romantic adventures should fade away, after keeping the curiosity of all the courtiers of the princess on the _qui vive._ Perhaps Madame de Cambes was injudicious; perhaps, if she had made no concealment of her love, it would have created less sensation, or the sensation would have been less long-lived.