"Where have you spent the evening?" she asked, with a pretence of
complete indifference.

"At Mme. de Serizy's."

He had taken up a fire-screen, and was looking intently at the gauze.
He had not noticed the traces of tears on his wife's face. Julie
shuddered. Words could not express the overflowing torrent of thoughts
which must be forced down into inner depths.

"Mme. de Serizy is giving a concert on Monday, and is dying for you to
go. You have not been anywhere for some time past, and that is enough
to set her longing to see you at her house. She is a good-natured
woman, and very fond of you. I should be glad if you would go; I all
but promised that you should----"

"I will go."

There was something so penetrating, so significant in the tones of
Julie's voice, in her accent, in the glance that went with the words,
that Victor, startled out of his indifference, stared at his wife in
astonishment.

That was all, Julie had guessed that it was Mme. de Serizy who had
stolen her husband's heart from her. Her brooding despair benumbed
her. She appeared to be deeply interested in the fire. Victor
meanwhile still played with the fire-screen. He looked bored, like a
man who has enjoyed himself elsewhere, and brought home the consequent
lassitude. He yawned once or twice, then he took up a candle in one