reproached him with trying to
reestablish buildings in their primitive plan, as they had been, or as
they might have been, at the beginning. Philippe Dechartre, on the
contrary, wished that everything which the lapse of centuries had added
to a church, an abbey, or a castle should be respected. To abolish
anachronisms and restore a building to its primitive unity, seemed to him
to be a scientific barbarity as culpable as that of ignorance. He said:
'It is a crime to efface the successive imprints made in stone by the
hands of our ancestors. New stones cut in old style are false witnesses.'
He wished to limit the task of the archaeologic architect to that of
supporting and consolidating walls. He was right. Everybody said that he
was wrong. He achieved his ruin by dying young, while his rival
triumphed. He bequeathed an honest fortune to his widow and his son.
Jacques Dechartre was brought up by his mother, who adored him. I do not
think that maternal tenderness ever was more impetuous. Jacques is a
charming fellow; but he is a spoiled child."

"Yet he appears so indifferent, so easy to understand, so distant from
everything."

"Do not rely on this. He has a tormented and tormenting imagination."

"Does he like women?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, it isn't with any idea of match-making."

"Yes, he likes them. I told you that he was an egoist. Only selfish men
really love women. After the death of his mother, he had a long liaison
with a well-known actress, Jeanne Tancrede."

Madame Martin remembered Jeanne Tancrede; not very pretty, but graceful
with a certain slowness of action in playing romantic roles.

"They lived almost together in a little house at Auteuil," Paul Vence
continued. "I often called on them. I found him lost in his dreams,
forgetting to model a figure drying under its cloths, alone with himself,
pursuing his idea, absolutely incapable of listening to anybody; she,
studying her roles, her complexion burned by rouge, her eyes tender,
pretty because of her intelligence and her activity. She complained to me
that he was inattentive, cross, and unreasonable. She loved him and
deceived him only to obtain roles. And when she deceived him, it was done
on the spur of the moment. Afterward she never thought of it. A typical
woman! But she was imprudent; she smiled upon Joseph Springer in the hope
that he would make her a member of the Comedie Francaise. Dechartre left
her. Now she finds it more practical to