Sometimes they would meet in the Buttes Chaumont, at others they
preferred the gardens on the left bank of the Seine, the Luxembourg, and
even the distant Parc de Montsouris. She was always in tremors of terror
lest her husband might surprise them, although she well knew that the
industrious engineer was in his factory a great distance away. Her
agitated aspect, her excessive precautions in order to slip by unseen,
only served to attract the attention of the passers-by. Although Julio
was waxing impatient with the annoyance of this wandering love affair
which only amounted to a few fugitive kisses, he finally held his peace,
dominated by Marguerite's pleadings.

She did not wish merely to be one in the procession of his sweethearts;
it was necessary to convince herself first that this love was going to
last forever. It was her first slip and she wanted it to be the last.
Ay, her former spotless reputation! . . . What would people say! . . .
The two returned to their adolescent period, loving each other as they
had never loved before, with the confident and childish passion of
fifteen-year-olds.

Julio had leaped from childhood to libertinism, taking his initiation
into life at a single bound. She had desired marriage in order to
acquire the respect and liberty of a married woman, but feeling towards
her husband only a vague gratitude. "We end where others begin," she had
said to Desnoyers.

Their passion took the form of an intense, reciprocal and vulgar love.
They felt a romantic sentimentality in clasping hands or exchanging
kisses on a garden bench in the twilight. He was treasuring a ringlet
of Marguerite's--although he doubted its genuineness, with a vague
suspicion that it might be one of the latest wisps of fashion. She