Would it not be better, for the sake of appearances, to act, with
Olivier Bertin himself, the hypocritical comedy of indifference and
forgetfulness, to show him that she had effaced that moment from her
memory and from her life?

But could she do it? Would she have the audacity to appear to recollect
nothing, to assume a look of indignant astonishment in saying: "What
would you with me?" to the man with whom she had actually shared that
swift and ardent emotion?

She reflected a long time, and decided that any other solution was
impossible.

She would go to him courageously the next day, and make him understand
as soon as she could what she desired him to do. She must not use a
word, an allusion, a look, that could recall to him that moment of
shame.

After he had suffered--for assuredly he would have his share of
suffering, as a loyal and upright man--he would remain in future that
which he had been up to the present.

As soon as this new resolution was formed, she gave her address to the
coachman and returned home, profoundly depressed, with a desire to take
to her bed, to see no one, to sleep and forget. Having shut herself up
in her room, she remained there until the dinner hour, lying on a couch,
benumbed, not wishing to agitate herself longer with that thought so
full of danger.

She descended at the exact hour, astonished to find herself so calm, and
awaited her husband with her ordinary demeanor. He appeared, carrying
their little one in his arms; she pressed his hand and kissed the child,
and felt no pang of anguish.

Monsieur de Guilleroy inquired what she had been doing. She replied
indifferently that she had been posing, as usual.

"And the portrait--is it good?" he asked.

"It is coming on very well."

He spoke of his own affairs, in his turn; he enjoyed talking, while
dining, of the sitting of the Chamber, and of the discussion of the
proposed law on the adulteration of food-stuffs.

This rather tiresome talk, which she usually endured amiably, now
irritated her, and made her look with closer attention at the man who
was vulgarly loquacious in his interest in such things; but she smiled
as she listened, and replied pleasantly, more gracious even than
usual, more indulgent toward these banalities. As she looked at him she
thought: "I have deceived him! He is my husband, and I have deceived
him! How strange it is! Nothing can change that fact, nothing can
obliterate it! I closed my eyes. I su