The memory of this ball, then, became an occupation for Emma.

Whenever the Wednesday came round she said to herself as she awoke, “Ah!  I was there a week—­a fortnight—­three weeks ago.”

And little by little the faces grew confused in her remembrance.

She forgot the tune of the quadrilles; she no longer saw the liveries and appointments so distinctly; some details escaped her, but the regret remained with her.

Chapter Nine

Often when Charles was out she took from the cupboard, between the folds of the linen where she had left it, the green silk cigar case.  She looked at it, opened it, and even smelt the odour of the lining—­a mixture of verbena and tobacco.  Whose was it?  The Viscount’s?  Perhaps it was a present from his mistress.  It had been embroidered on some rosewood frame, a pretty little thing, hidden from all eyes, that had occupied many hours, and over which had fallen the soft curls of the pensive worker.  A breath of love had passed over the stitches on the canvas; each prick of the needle had fixed there a hope or a memory, and all those interwoven threads of silk were but the continuity of the same silent passion.  And then one morning the Viscount had taken it away with him.  Of what had they spoken when it lay upon the wide-mantelled chimneys between flower-vases and Pompadour clocks?  She was at Tostes; he was at Paris now, far away!  What was this Paris like?  What a vague name!  She repeated it in a low voice, for the mere pleasure of it; it rang in her ears like a great cathedral bell; it shone before her eyes, even on the labels of her pomade-pots.

At night, when the carriers passed under her windows in their carts singing the “Marjolaine,” she awoke, and listened to the noise of the iron-bound wheels, which, as they gained the country road, was soon deadened by the soil.  “They will be there to-morrow!” she said to herself.

And she followed them in thought up and down the hills, traversing villages, gliding along the highroads by the light of the stars.  At the end of some indefinite distance there was always a confused spot, into which her dream died.

She bought a plan of Paris, and with the tip of her finger on the map she walked about the capital.  She went up the boulevards, stopping at every turning, between the lines of the streets, in front of the white squares that represented the houses.  At last she would close the lids of her weary eyes, and see in the darkness the gas jets flaring in the wind and the steps of carriages lowered with much noise before the peristyles of theatres.