nst us.
If it had not been for President Grevy's help, he would have overthrown
us. And he was a very ordinary general, a general like any other. Oh, no;
do not think that the portfolio of war may be given hastily, without
reflection."

And Garain still shivered at the thought of his former colleague.

Therese rose. Senator Loyer offered his arm to her, with the graceful
attitude that he had learned forty years before at Bullier's
dancing-hall. She left the politicians in the drawing-room, and hastened
to meet Dechartre.

A rosy mist covered the Seine, the stone quays, and the gilded trees. The
red sun threw into the cloudy sky the last glories of the year. Therese,
as she went out, relished the sharpness of the air and the dying splendor
of the day. Since her return to Paris, happy, she found pleasure every
morning in the changes of the weather. It seemed to her, in her generous
selfishness, that it was for her the wind blew in the trees, or the fine,
gray rain wet the horizon of the avenues; for her, so that she might say,
as she entered the little house of the Ternes, "It is windy; it is
raining; the weather is pleasant;" mingling thus the ocean of things in
the intimacy of her love. And every day was beautiful for her, since each
one brought her to the arms of her beloved.

While on her way that day to the little house of the Ternes she thought
of her unexpected happiness, so full and so secure. She walked in the
last glory of the sun already touched by winter, and said to herself:

"He loves me; I believe he loves me entirely. To love is easier and more
natural for him than for other men. They have in life ideas they think
superior to love--faith, habits, interests. They believe in God, or in
duties, or in themselves. He believes in me only. I am his God, his duty,
and his life."

Then she thought:

"It is true, too, that he needs nobody, not even me. His thoughts alone
are a magnificent world in which he could easily live by himself. But I
can not live without him. What would become of me if I did not have him?"

She was not alarmed by the violent passion that he had for her. She
recalled that she had said to him one day: "Your love for me is only
sensual. I do not complain of it; it is perhaps the only true love." And
he had replied: "It is also the only grand and strong love. It has its
measure and its weapons. It is full of meaning and of images. It is
violent and mysterious. It attaches itself to the