ppeared to have the
effect of launching him again. She drank a great deal of champagne and
ate an immense number of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a
person with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne and what she
doubtless would have called betises.

They had half-finished dinner when Longmore sat down, and he was still
in his place when they rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above her
chair, and her companion passed round the table to take it down for her.
As he did so she bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, and
in the movement exposed the greater part of the back of a very handsome
neck. The gentleman observed it, and observed also, apparently, that the
room beyond them was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Longmore he
failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss on
the fair expanse. In the author of this tribute Longmore then recognised
Richard de Mauves. The lady to whom it had been rendered put on her
bonnet, using his flushed smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed
through the garden on their way to their carriage. Then for the first
time M. de Mauves became aware of his wife's young friend. He measured
with a rapid glance this spectator's relation to the open window and
checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He contented
himself with bowing all imperturbably as he opened the gate for his
companion.

That evening Longmore made a railway journey, but not to Brussels. He
had effectually ceased to care for Brussels; all he cared for in the
world now was Madame de Mauves. The air of his mind had had a sudden
clearing-up; pity and anger were still throbbing there, but they had
space to range at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had abruptly
departed. It was little, he felt, that he could interpose between her
resignation and the indignity of her position; but that little, if it
involved the sacrifice of everything that bound him to the tranquil
past, he could offer her with a rapture which at last made stiff
resistance a terribly inferior substitute for faith. Nothing in his
tranquil past had given such a zest to consciousness as this happy sense
of choosing to go straight back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his
return, how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He wasn't even
sure he wished to be understood; he wished only to show how little by
any fault of his Madame de Mauves was alone so with the harshness of