However, it was always the others who were the first to fail in their love.  They got broken; they disappeared.  The separation, at all events, was invariably their fault.  Why was it?  She herself never changed.  When she loved any one, her love lasted all her life.  Her mind could not grasp the idea of neglect and desertion; such things seemed to her monstrously wicked, and never occurred to her little heart without giving it a deadly pang.  She shivered as a host of vague ideas slowly awoke within her.  So people parted one day; each went his own way, never to meet or love each other again.  With her eyes fixed on the limitless and dreary expanse of Paris, she sat chilled by all that her childish passion could divine of life’s hard blows.

Meantime her breath was fast dimming the glass.  With her hands she rubbed away the vapor that prevented her from looking out.  Several monuments in the distance, wet with the rain, glittered like browny ice.  There were lines of houses, regular and distinct, which, with their fronts standing out pale amidst the surrounding roofs, looked like outstretched linen—­some tremendous washing spread to dry on fields of ruddy grass.  The sky was clearing, and athwart the tail of the cloud which still cloaked the city in gloom the milky rays of the sun were beginning to stream.  A brightness seemed to be hesitating over some of the districts; in certain places the sky would soon begin to smile.  Jeanne gazed below, over the quay and the slopes of the Trocadero; the street traffic was about to begin afresh after that violent downpour.  The cabs again passed by at a jolting crawl, while the omnibuses rattled along the still lonely streets with a louder noise than usual.  Umbrellas were being shut up, and wayfarers, who had taken shelter beneath the trees, ventured from one foot pavement to another through muddy streams which were rushing into the gutters.

Jeanne noticed with special interest a lady and a little girl, both of them fashionably dressed, who were standing beneath the awning of a toy-shop near the bridge.  Doubtless they had been caught in the shower, and had taken refuge there.  The child would fain have carried away the whole shop, and had pestered her mother to buy her a hoop.  Both were now leaving, however, and the child was running along full of glee, driving the hoop before her.  At this Jeanne’s melancholy returned with intensified force; her doll became hideous.  She longed to have a hoop and to be down yonder and run along, while her mother slowly walked behind her and cautioned her not to go too far.  Then, however, everything became dim again.  At each minute she had to rub the glass clear.  She had been enjoined never to open the window; but she was full of rebellious thoughts; she surely might gaze out of the window, if she were not to be taken for a walk.  So she opened it, and leaned out like a grown-up person—­in imitation of her mother when she ensconced herself there and lapsed into silence.