“You would never have flung me into the water,” said Camille, brushing away a tear.

Toward morning, Calyste, worn-out with emotion, fell asleep in his arm-chair; and the marquise in her turn, watched his charming face, paled by his feelings and his vigil of love.  She heard him murmur her name as he slept.

“He loves while sleeping,” she said to Camille.

“We must send him home,” said Felicite, waking him.

No one was anxious at the hotel du Guenic, for Mademoiselle des Touches had written a line to the baroness telling her of the accident.

Calyste returned to dinner at Les Touches and found Beatrix up and dressed, but pale, feeble, and languid.  No longer was there any harshness in her words or any coldness in her looks.  After this evening, filled with music by Camille, who went to her piano to leave Calyste free to take and press the hands of Beatrix (though both were unable to speak), no storms occurred at Les Touches.  Felicite completely effaced herself.

Cold, fragile, thin, hard women like Madame de Rochefide, women whose necks turn in a manner to give them a vague resemblance to the feline race, have souls of the same pale tint as their light eyes, green or gray; and to melt them, to fuse those blocks of stone it needs a thunderbolt.  To Beatrix, Calyste’s fury of love and his mad action came as the thunderbolt that nought resists, which changes all natures, even the most stubborn.  She felt herself inwardly humbled; a true, pure love bathed her heart with its soft and limpid warmth.  She breathed a sweet and genial atmosphere of feelings hitherto unknown to her, by which she felt herself magnified, elevated; in fact, she rose into that heaven where Bretons throughout all time have placed the Woman.  She relished with delight the respectful adoration of the youth, whose happiness cost her little, for a gesture, a look, a word was enough to satisfy him.  The value which Calyste’s heart gave to these trifles touched her exceedingly; to hold her gloved hand was more to that young angel than the possession of her whole person to the man who ought to have been faithful to her.  What a contrast between them!

Few women could resist such constant deification.  Beatrix felt herself sure of being obeyed and understood.  She might have asked Calyste to risk his life for the slightest of her caprices, and he would never have reflected for a moment.  This consciousness gave her a certain noble and imposing air.  She saw love on the side of its grandeur; and her heart sought for some foothold on which she might remain forever the loftiest of women in the eyes of her young lover, over whom she now wished her power to be eternal.

Her coquetries became the more persistent because she felt within herself a certain weakness.  She played the invalid for a whole week with charming hypocrisy.  Again and again she walked about the velvet turf which lay between the house and garden leaning on Calyste’s arm in languid dependence.