Chapter 8

However (continued Armand after a pause), while I knew myself to
be still in love with her, I felt more sure of myself, and part
of my desire to speak to Marguerite again was a wish to make her
see that I was stronger than she.

How many ways does the heart take, how many reasons does it
invent for itself, in order to arrive at what it wants!

I could not remain in the corridor, and I returned to my place in
the stalls, looking hastily around to see what box she was in.
She was in a ground-floor box, quite alone. She had changed, as I
have told you, and no longer wore an indifferent smile on her
lips. She had suffered; she was still suffering. Though it was
April, she was still wearing a winter costume, all wrapped up in
furs.

I gazed at her so fixedly that my eyes attracted hers. She looked
at me for a few seconds, put up her opera-glass to see me better,
and seemed to think she recognised me, without being quite sure
who I was, for when she put down her glasses, a smile, that
charming, feminine salutation, flitted across her lips, as if to
answer the bow which she seemed to expect; but I did not respond,
so as to have an advantage over her, as if I had forgotten, while
she remembered. Supposing herself mistaken,, she looked away.