but the thought was tempered
with a gentle pity. He recalled all the evil that he knew of her, but
without bitterness. He felt that he loved her, less because she was
pretty than because she was pretty in her own fashion; in a word, that
he loved her because she was a gem endowed with life, and an
incomparable thing of art and voluptuousness. He looked into the
fascinating grey of her eyes, into their pupils, where tiny astrological
symbols seemed to float in a luminous tide. He gazed at her with a gaze
so searching that she felt it pierce right through her. And, assured
that he had seen right into her, she said to him, with her eyes on his,
clasping his head between her two hands:

"Oh yes! I'm a rotten little actress; but I love you, and I don't care a
rap for money. And there aren't many as good as me. And you know it well
enough."

CHAPTER XV

They met daily at the theatre, and they went for walks together.

Nanteuil was playing almost every night, and was eagerly working at her
part of Cecile. She was gradually recovering her peace of mind; her
nights were less disturbed; she no longer made her mother hold her hand
while she fell asleep and no longer found herself suffocating in
nightmares. A fortnight went by in this fashion. Then, one morning,
while sitting at her dressing-table, combing her hairs she bent her head
toward the glass, as the weather was overcast, and she saw in it, not
her own face, but the face of the dead man. A thread of blood was
trickling from one corner of his mouth; he was smiling and gazing at
her.

Thereupon she decided to do what she thought would be the proper and
efficacious thing. She took a cab and drove off to see him. Going down
the Boulevard Saint-Michel she bought a bunch of roses at her florist's.
She took them to him. She went down on her knees before the tiny black
cross which marked the spot where they had laid him. She spoke to him,
she begged him to be reasonable, to leave her in peace. She asked his
forgiveness for having treated him formerly with harshness. People did
not always understand one another in life. But now he ought to
understand and forgive her. What good did it do to him to torment her?
She asked no better than to retain a kindly memory of him. She would
come and see him from time to time. But he must cease to persecute and
frighten her.

She sought to flatter and soothe him with gentle phrases.

"I can understand that you wanted to revenge y