man explain himself when he is dying of jealousy, and when he keeps
repeating to his terrified mistress, 'You are lying! you are lying!'
When he shakes her, interrupts her while she is speaking, and says such
hard things to her that at last she flies into a rage, has enough of it,
becomes hard and mad, and thinks of nothing but of giving him tit for
tat and of paying him out in his own coin; does not care a straw about
destroying his happiness, sends everything to the devil, and talks a lot
of bosh which she certainly does not believe. And then, because there is
nothing so stupid and so obstinate in the whole world as lovers, neither
he nor she will take the first steps, and own to having been in the
wrong, and regret having gone too far; but both wait and watch and do
not even write a few lines about nothing, which would restore peace. No,
they let day succeed day, and there are feverish and sleepless nights
when the bed seems so hard, so cheerless and so large, and habits get
weakened and the fire of love that was still smoldering at the bottom of
the heart evaporates in smoke. By degrees both find some reason for what
they wished to do, they think themselves idiots to lose the time which
will never return in that fashion, and so good-bye, and there you are!
That is how Josine Cadenette and that great idiot Servance separated."

Lalie Spring had lighted a cigarette, and the blue smoke played about
her fine, fair hair, and made one think of those last rays of the
setting sun which pierce through the clouds at sunset, and resting her
elbows on her knees, and with her chin in her hand in a dreamy attitude,
she murmured:

"Sad, isn't it?"

"Bah!" I replied, "at their age people easily console themselves, and
everything begins over again, even love!"