way of saving her. Keep yourself pure. Work."

Olivier did not need to go to Christophe for scruples. He was even more
nicely sensitive than he in such matters. Not that he took Christophe's
diatribes against money seriously: he had been rich himself, and did not
loathe riches, and thought them a very good setting for Jacqueline's
pretty face. But it was intolerable to think that his love might in any
way be contaminated with an imputation of interest. He applied to have
his name restored to the University list. For the time being he could
not hope for anything better than a moderate post in a provincial
school. It was a poor wedding-present to give to Jacqueline. He told her
about it timidly. Jacqueline found it difficult at first to see his
point of view: she attributed it to an excessive pride, put into his
head by Christophe, and she thought it ridiculous: was it not more
natural between lovers to set no store by riches or poverty, and was it
not rather shabby to refuse to be indebted to her when it would give her
such great joy?... However, she threw herself in with Olivier's plans:
their austerity and discomfort were the very things that brought her
round, for she found in them an opportunity of gratifying her desire for
moral heroism. In her condition of proud revolt against her surroundings
which had been induced by the death of her aunt, and was exalted by her
love, she had gone so far as to deny every element in her nature which
was in contradiction to her mystic ardor: in all sincerity her whole
being was strained, like a bow, after an ideal of a pure and difficult
life, radiant with happiness.... The obstacles, the very smallness and
dullness of her future condition in life, were a joy to her. How good
and beautiful it would all be!...

Madame Langeais was too much taken up with herself to pay much attention
to what was going on about her. For some time past she had been thinking