e complex and simple, these methods. So complex that we
can never guess at them beforehand, and so simple that after having been
victimized we cannot help being astonished and exclaiming: 'What! Did she
make a fool of me so easily as that?'

"And they always succeed, old man, especially when it is a question of
getting married.

"But this is Sumner's story:

"The little woman was a model, of course. She posed for him. She was
pretty, very stylish-looking, and had a divine figure, it seems. He
fancied that he loved her with his whole soul. That is another strange
thing. As soon as one likes a woman one sincerely believes that they
could not get along without her for the rest of their life. One knows
that one has felt the same way before and that disgust invariably
succeeded gratification; that in order to pass one's existence side by
side with another there must be not a brutal, physical passion which soon
dies out, but a sympathy of soul, temperament and temper. One should know
how to determine in the enchantment to which one is subjected whether it
proceeds from the physical, from a certain sensuous intoxication, or from
a deep spiritual charm.

"Well, he believed himself in love; he made her no end of promises of
fidelity, and was devoted to her.

"She was really attractive, gifted with that fashionable flippancy that
little Parisians so readily affect. She chattered, babbled, made foolish
remarks that sounded witty from the manner in which they were uttered.
She used graceful gesture's which were calculated to attract a painter's
eye. When she raised her arms, when she bent over, when she got into a
carriage, when she held out her hand to you, her gestures were perfect
and appropriate.

"For three months Jean never noticed that, in reality, she was like all
other models.

"He rented a little house for her for the summer at Andresy.

"I was there one evening when for the first time doubts came into my
friend's mind.

"As it was a beautiful evening we thought we would take a stroll along
the bank of the river. The moon poured a flood of light on the trembling
water, scattering yellow gleams along its ripples in the currents and all
along the course of the wide, slow river.

"We strolled along the bank, a little enthused by that vague exaltation
that these dreamy evenings produce in us. We would have liked to
undertake some wonderful task, to love some unknown, deliciously poetic
being. We felt ourselves vi