In man, possession most frequently causes passion to disappear; the reality kills the ideal; the awakening, the dream; in woman on the other hand, it nearly always enhances, for the first time at any rate, the fascination of being loved, for she attaches herself to him in proportion to the trouble, the shame, the sacrifice.

For with man, love is but an episode, while with woman it is her whole life.

LXXVIII.

FALSE ALARM.

  “She’s there, say’st thou?  What, can that be the maid
  Whose pure, fresh face attracted me but now,
  When I beheld her in her home; alas,
  And can the flower so quickly fade?"...

  DELPHINE GAY.

Suzanne, who had passed a sleepless night, was fast asleep in the morning, when her father burst into her room like a hurricane.

She woke with a start, all pale and trembling; she tried nevertheless to assume the most innocent and the calmest air.

—­What is the matter, papa?

But Durand did not answer.  He surveyed the room with a scrutinizing eye, apparently, interrogating the furniture and the walls, as if he were asking them if they had not been witnesses of some unusual event.

But if walls at times have eyes and ears, they have no tongue; they cannot relate the things they have seen.  Then he turned towards his daughter in such a singular way that Suzanne dropped her eyes and felt she was going to faint.

—­Suzanne, he demanded of her abruptly, did you hear anything in the night?

—­I! she said with the most profound astonishment.

—­Yes, you, Suzanne.  It seems to me that I am speaking to you.  Did you hear anything in the night?

She thought she saw at first that her father knew nothing, and, in spite of herself, a long sigh of relief escaped her breast; therefore she replied with the most natural air in the world: 

—­What do you mean that I have heard, father?

—­Something has happened, my daughter, this very night, in the garden, said
Durand, scanning his words, something extraordinary.

This time Suzanne was terrified.

Nevertheless she collected all her courage; fully determined to lie to the last extremity.

—­Well?

—­Well, father? you puzzle me.

And leaning her pretty pale head on her plump arm, she looked at her father with perfect assurance.

She was charming thus.  Her black hair, long and curling, partly covered her round, polished shoulders, and her velvety eye was frankly fixed on Durand’s.

The old soldier was moved; he looked at his daughter with admiration, and reproached himself doubtlessly for his wrongful suspicions, for he said gently: 

—­Do not lie to me, Suzanne, and answer my questions frankly.  I know very well that you are not guilty, that you cannot be guilty, that you have nothing to reproach yourself with; you quite see then that I am not angry.  But sometimes young girls allow themselves to be led into acts of thoughtlessness which they believe to be of no consequence, and which yet have a gravity which they do not foresee.  Last night a man entered the garden.