As he pressed the electric bell, Landri was sure that the only servant, answering the ring, would conduct him through the narrow reception-room and the salon with its covered furniture, to a tiny room, looking on the garden at the rear, which Madame Olier used as a second salon. She would be there, writing, at the little movable table which she placed by the fire or by the door-window according to the season. Or else she would be reading, seated on the bergère covered with an old striped stuff, dead pink and faded green, always the same. Or else her slender fingers would be busy with her embroidery needle. Correspondence, reading, work or music,--a piano which she rarely opened except when alone, told of that taste of hers,--her occupation would be constantly interrupted by a glance at the path in the garden, where her son Ludovic was playing. Landri found therein an image of what the whole life of that widow and mother had been during the year since she had lost her husband! Great God! how dearly he loved the young woman for having thus proved to him how justly he had placed her so far apart from all other women from the moment of their first meeting! Valentine was there, in fact, in the small salon softly lighted by the morning sun which was just making its way through a last film of mist. She was apparently engrossed by an endless piece of embroidery. But the music portfolio, still open on the piano, and the stool pushed back a little way, might have betrayed to the young man how she had passed the time while awaiting his coming. Still another sign betokened her agitation. She had not her child with her. Contrary to her custom she had sent him out to walk at ten o'clock. Why, if not that she might be alone with her thoughts? Her self-control, however, enabled her to welcome her visitor with the same inclination of the head as usual, friendly yet reserved, the same smile of distant affability. At most the quivering of the eyelids betrayed a nervousness which was contradicted by the even tones of her voice and by the impenetrable glance of her limpid blue eyes.