entation of love, that irresistible attraction; but he would not
understand, he trusted to events, to the unforeseen chances of life.

He had no longer any other interest than that of his dinners and his
evenings between those two women, separated from the gay world by their
mourning. Meeting only indifferent faces at their house--those of the
Corbelles, and Musadieu oftener--he fancied himself almost alone in the
world with them; and as he now seldom saw the Duchess and the Marquis,
for whom the morning and noontimes were reserved, he wished to forget
them, suspecting that the marriage had been indefinitely postponed.

Besides, Annette never spoke of Monsieur de Farandal before him. Was
this because of a sort of instinctive modesty, or was it perhaps from
one of those secret intuitions of the feminine heart which enable them
to foretell that of which they are ignorant?

Weeks followed weeks, without changing this manner of life, and autumn
came, bringing the reopening of the Chamber, earlier than usual because
of certain political dangers.

On the day of the reopening, the Comte de Guilleroy was to take to the
meeting of Parliament Madame de Mortemain, the Marquis, and Annette,
after a breakfast at his own house. The Countess alone, isolated in
her sorrow, which was steadily increasing, had declared that she would
remain at home.

They had left the table and were drinking coffee in the large
drawing-room, in a merry mood. The Count, happy to resume parliamentary
work, his only pleasure, talked very well concerning the existing
situation and of the embarrassments of the Republic; the Marquis,
unmistakably in love, answered him brightly, while gazing at Annette;
and the Duchess was almost equally pleased with the emotion of her
nephew and the distress of the government. The air of the drawing-room
was warm with that first concentrated heat of newly-lighted furnaces,
the heat of draperies, carpets, and walls, in which the perfumes of
asphyxiated flowers was evaporating. There was in this closely shut
room, filled with the aroma of coffee, an air of comfort, intimate,
familiar, and satisfied, when the door was opened before Olivier Bertin.

He paused at the threshold, so surprised that he hesitated to enter,
surprised as a deceived husband who beholds his wife's crime. A
confusion of anger and mingled emotion suffocated him, revealing to
him the fact that his heart was worm-eaten with love! All that they had
hidden f