nse of her isolation arose in her. She could hardly
breathe. Suddenly she pressed her lips upon the glass which reflected her
own image, so sad, so pale, so desolate. She put the pity for herself
into a long, long, fervent kiss, which seemed to say: "Yes, I am all
alone--alone forever." Then, in a spirit of revenge, she opened what
seemed a safety-valve, preventing her from giving way to any other
emotion.

She rushed for a little box which she had converted into a sort of
reliquary. She took out of it the half-burned cigarette, the old glove,
the withered violets, and a visiting-card with his name, on which three
unimportant lines had been written. She insulted these keepsakes, she
tore them with her nails, she trampled them underfoot, she reduced them
to fragments; she left nothing whatever of them, except a pile of shreds,
which at last she set fire to. She had a feeling as if she were employed
in executing two great culprits, who deserved cruel tortures at her
hands; and, with them, she slew now and forever the foolish fancy she had
called her love. By a strange association of ideas, the famous
composition, so praised by M. Regis, came back to her memory, and she
cried:

"Je ne veux me souvenir.... me souvenir de rien!"

"If I remember, I shall be more unhappy. All has been a dream. His look
was a dream, his pressure of my hand, his kiss on the last day,
all--all--were dreams. He was making a fool of me when he gave me that
pink which is now in this pile of ashes. He was laughing when he told me
I was more beautiful than was natural. Never have I been--never shall I
be in his eyes--more than the baby he remembers playing with her doll."

And unconsciously, as Jacqueline said these words, she imitated the
careless accent with which she had heard them fall from the lips of the
artist. And she would have again to meet him! If she had had thunder and
lightning at her command, as she had had the match with which she had set
fire to the memorials of her juvenile folly, Marien would have been
annihilated on the spot. She was at that moment a murderess at heart. But
the dinner-bell rang. The young fury gave a last glance at the adornments
of her pretty bedchamber, so elegant, so original--all blue and pink,
with a couch covered with silk embroidered with flowers. She seemed to
say to them all: "Keep my secret. It is a sad one. Be careful: keep it
safely." The cupids on the clock, the little book-rest on a velvet sta