rself to be in peril. When a man has been the lover of a woman as
that man had been hers, with the vibrating communion of a voluptuousness
unbroken for two years, that woman maintains a sort of physiological,
quasi-animal instinct. A gesture, the accent of a word, a sigh, a
blush, a pallor, are signs for her that her intuition interprets with
infallible certainty. How and why is that instinct accompanied by
absolute oblivion of former caresses? It is a particular case of that
insoluble and melancholy problem of the birth and death of love. Madame
Steno had no taste for reflection of that order. Like all vigorous and
simple creatures, she acknowledged and accepted it. As on the previous
day, she became aware that the presence of her former lover no longer
touched in her being the chord which had rendered her so weak to him
during twenty-five months, so indulgent to his slightest caprices. It
left her as cold as the marble of the bas-relief by Mino da Fiesole
fitted into the wall just above the high chair upon which he leaned.

Boleslas, notwithstanding the paroxysm of lucid fury which he suffered
at that moment, and which rendered him capable of the worst violence,
had on his part a knowledge of the complete insensibility in which his
presence left her. He had seen her so often, in the course of their long
liaison, arrive at their morning rendezvous at that hour, in similar
toilettes, so fresh, so supple, so youthful in her maturity, so eager
for kisses, tender and ardent. She had now in her blue eyes, in her
smile, in her entire person, some thing at once so gracious and so
inaccessible, which gives to an abandoned lover the mad longing to
strike, to murder, a woman who smiles at him with such a smile. At the
same time she was so beautiful in the morning light, subdued by the
lowered blinds, that she inspired him with an equal desire to clasp her
in his arms whether she would or no. He had recognized, when she entered
the room, the aroma of a preparation which she had used in her bath, and
that trifle alone had aroused his passion far more than when the servant
told him Madame Steno was engaged, and he wondered whether she was
not alone with Maitland. Those impassioned, but suppressed, feelings
trembled in the accent of the very simple phrase with which he greeted
her. At certain moments, words are nothing; it is the tone in which they
are uttered. And to the Countess that of the young man was terrible.

"I am disturbin