ot sure of myself. There are women, it
is said, who are sure of themselves. I warned you that I was not like
them."

He shook his head violently, like an irritated animal.

"What do you mean? I do not understand. I understand nothing. Speak
clearly. There is something between us. I do not know what. I demand to
know what it is. What is it?"

"There is the fact that I am not a woman sure of herself, and that you
should not rely on me. No, you should not rely on me. I had promised
nothing--and then, if I had promised, what are words?"

"You do not love me. Oh, you love me no more! I can see it. But it is so
much the worse for you! I love you. You should not have given yourself
to me. Do not think that you can take yourself back. I love you and I
shall keep you. So you thought you could get out of it very quietly?
Listen a moment. You have done everything to make me love you, to attach
me to you, to make it impossible for me to live without you.

"Six weeks ago you asked for nothing better. You were everything for me,
I was everything for you. And now you desire suddenly that I should
know you no longer; that you should be to me a stranger, a lady whom one
meets in society. Ah, you have a fine audacity! Have I dreamed? All the
past is a dream? I invented it all? Oh, there can be no doubt of it. You
loved me. I feel it still. Well, I have not changed. I am what I was;
you have nothing to complain of. I have not betrayed you for other
women. It isn't credit that I claim. I could not have done it. When one
has known you, one finds the prettiest women insipid. I never have had
the idea of deceiving you. I have always acted well toward you. Why
should you not love me? Answer! Speak! Say you love me still. Say it,
since it is true. Come, Therese, you will feel at once that you love as
you loved me formerly in the little nest where we were so happy. Come!"

He approached her ardently. She, her eyes full of fright, pushed him
away with a kind of horror.

He understood, stopped, and said:

"You have a lover."

She bent her head, then lifted it, grave and dumb.

Then he made a gesture as if to strike her, and at once recoiled in
shame. He lowered his eyes and was silent. His fingers to his lips, and
biting his nails, he saw that his hand had been pricked by a pin on her
waist, and bled. He threw himself in an armchair, drew his handkerchief
to wipe off the blood, and remained indifferent and without thought.

She, with