She looked at him indignantly: 

“Can you believe—­”

“Did you not see him again at Florence?  Did you not accompany him to the station?”

She told him that he had come to Italy to find her; that she had seen him; that she had broken with him; that he had gone, irritated, and that since then he was trying to win her back; but that she had not even paid any attention to him.

“My beloved, I see, I know, only you in the world.”  He shook his head.

“I do not believe you.”

She revolted.

“I have told you everything.  Accuse me, condemn me, but do not offend me in my love for you.”

He shook his head.

“Leave me.  You have harmed me too much.  I have loved you so much that all the pain which you could have given me I would have taken, kept, loved; but this is too hideous.  I hate it.  Leave me.  I am suffering too much.  Farewell!”

She stood erect.

“I have come.  It is my happiness, it is my life, I am fighting for.  I will not go.”

And she said again all that she had already said.  Violent and sincere, sure of herself, she explained how she had broken the tie which was already loose and irritated her; how since the day when she had loved him she had been his only, without regret, without a wandering look or thought.  But in speaking to him of another she irritated him.  And he shouted at her: 

“I do not believe you.”

She only repeated her declarations.

And suddenly, instinctively, she looked at her watch: 

“Oh, it is noon!”

She had often given that cry of alarm when the farewell hour had surprised them.  And Jacques shuddered at the phrase which was so familiar, so painful, and was this time so desperate.  For a few minutes more she said ardent words and shed tears.  Then she left him; she had gained nothing.

At her house she found in the waiting-room the marketwoman, who had come to present a bouquet to her.  She remembered that her husband was a State minister.  There were telegrams, visiting-cards and letters, congratulations and solicitations.  Madame Marmet wrote to recommend her nephew to General Lariviere.

She went into the dining-room and fell in a chair.  M. Martin-Belleme was just finishing his breakfast.  He was expected at the Cabinet Council and at the former Finance Minister’s, to whom he owed a call.

“Do not forget, my dear friend, to call on Madame Berthier d’Eyzelles.  You know how sensitive she is.”

She made no answer.  While he was dipping his fingers in the glass bowl, he saw she was so tired that he dared not say any more.  He found himself in the presence of a secret which he did not wish to know; in presence of an intimate suffering which one word would reveal.  He felt anxiety, fear, and a certain respect.

He threw down his napkin.

“Excuse me, dear.”

He went out.