days we have spent? Those
recollections retain their place in the heart! Has the idea of living
again as in the past never occurred to you? It was so sweet!"

Lissac laughed a little nervously and trembled slightly, trying to joke
but feeling himself suddenly weakening in the presence of this woman
whose wrath or contemptuous smile he preferred.

He recognized all the vanished perfumes. The sensation of trembling
delight that years had borne away now returned to him. The silent
pressure of the hands recalled nights of distraction. He half shut his
eyes, a sudden madness overcame him, although he was sufficiently calm
to say to himself that she had an end in view, this woman's coming to
him, loveless, to speak of love to him, herself unmoved by the senses,
to awaken vanished feelings, to offer herself with the irresistible
skill of desire: a dead passion born of caprice.

"Nevertheless, it is you who left me, satiated after taking from me all
that you were capable of loving," she said. "Do you know one thing,
however, Guy? There is more than one woman in a woman. There are as many
as she possesses of passions or joys, and the Marianne of to-day is so
different from the one who was your mistress formerly!--You would never
leave me, if you were my lover now!"

She tempted this man whose curiosity was aroused, accustomed as he was
to casual and easy love adventures. He foresaw danger, but there within
reach of his lips were experienced kisses, an ardent supplicant, a
proffered delight, full of burning promise. In a sort of anger, he
seized the woman who recalled all the past joys, uttered the well-known
cries, and who suddenly, as in a nervous attack, deliriously plucked the
covering from her bosom, and bared with the boldness of beauty that
knows itself to be irresistible, her white arms, her brilliant,
untrammeled breasts, the sparkling splendor of her flesh, with her
golden hair unfastened, as she used to appear lying on a pillow of fair
silk, almost faint and between her kisses, that were as fierce as bites,
uttering: "I love you--you--I adore you--" And the lovely, imperious
girl again became, almost without a word having been exchanged, the
submissive woman carried away by lascivious ardor; and Guy, confused and
speechless, no longer reasoning, was unable to say whether Marianne
belonged to him, or he to the mistress of former days, become the
mistress of to-day.

He held her clasped to him, his hand raising her