the shells of its flayed bark. She said:

"You have no more faith, have you?"

He led her to his room.

The letter written from Dinard had already softened his painful
impressions. She had come at the moment when, tired of suffering,
he felt the need of calm and of tenderness. A few lines of handwriting
had appeased his mind, fed on images, less susceptible to things than to
the signs of things; but he felt a pain in his heart.

In the room where everything spoke of her, where the furniture, the
curtains, and the carpets told of their love, she murmured soft words:

"You could believe--do you not know what you are?--it was folly! How can
a woman who has known you care for another after you?"

"But before?"

"Before, I was waiting for you."

"And he did not attend the races at Dinard?"

She did not think he had, and it was very certain she did not attend them
herself. Horses and horsey men bored her.

"Jacques, fear no one, since you are not comparable to any one."

He knew, on the contrary, how insignificant he was and how insignificant