thought him charming; she could not tear herself away from him; she
recalled his other attitudes on other days, the words he had spoken, the
sound of his voice, his whole person; and she repeated, pouting out her
lips as if for a kiss--

"Yes, charming! charming! Is he not in love?" she asked herself; "but
with whom? With me?"

All the proofs arose before her at once; her heart leapt. The flame of
the fire threw a joyous light upon the ceiling; she turned on her back,
stretching out her arms.

Then began the eternal lamentation: "Oh, if Heaven had out willed it!
And why not? What prevented it?"

When Charles came home at midnight, she seemed to have just awakened,
and as he made a noise undressing, she complained of a headache, then
asked carelessly what had happened that evening.

"Monsieur Leon," he said, "went to his room early."

She could not help smiling, and she fell asleep, her soul filled with a
new delight.

The next day, at dusk, she received a visit from Monsieur Lherueux, the
draper. He was a man of ability, was this shopkeeper. Born a Gascon but
bred a Norman, he grafted upon his southern volubility the cunning of
the Cauchois. His fat, flabby, beardless face seemed dyed by a
decoction of liquorice, and his white hair made even more vivid the
keen brilliance of his small black eyes. No one knew what he had been