e. Everything that had been invented for
the embellishment of feminine charm was used about her person with the
most exquisite fastidiousness. She had always lived for herself. Only
a few months before had she abdicated a part of this sweet selfishness,
sacrificing reunions, teas, and calls in order to give Desnoyers some of
the afternoon hours.

Stylish and painted like a priceless doll, with no loftier ambition
than to be a model, interpreting with personal elegance the latest
confections of the modistes, she was at last experiencing the same
preoccupations and joys as other women, creating for herself an inner
life. The nucleus of this new life, hidden under her former frivolity,
was Desnoyers. Just as she was imagining that she had reorganized
her existence--adjusting the satisfactions of worldly elegance to the
delights of love in intimate secrecy--a fulminating catastrophe (the
intervention of her husband whose possible appearance she seemed to
have overlooked) had disturbed her thoughtless happiness. She who was
accustomed to think herself the centre of the universe, imagining that
events ought to revolve around her desires and tastes, had suffered this
cruel surprise with more astonishment than grief.

"And you, how do you think I look?" Marguerite queried.

"I must tell you that the fashion has changed. The sheath skirt has
passed away. Now it is worn short and with more fullness."

Desnoyers had to interest himself in her apparel with the same devotion,
mixing his appreciation of the latest freak of the fashion-monger with
his eulogies of Marguerite's beauty.

"Have you thought much about me?" she continued. "You have not been
unfaithful to me a single time? Not even once? . . . Tell me the truth;
you know I can always tell when you are lying."

"I have always thought of you," he said putting his hand on his heart,
as if he were swearing before a judge.

And he said it roundly, with an accent of truth, since in his
infidelities--now completely forgotten--the memory of Marguerite had
always been present.

"But let us talk about you!" added Julio. "What have you been doing all
the time?"

He had brought his chair nearer to hers, and their knees touched. He
took one of her hands, patting it and putting his finger in the glove
opening. Oh, that accursed garden which would not permit greater
intimacy and obliged them to speak in a low tone, after three months'
absence! . . . In spite of his discretion, t