The Levantine house, whose gardens came up to the windows of the hotel, had sheltered for some months an artistic celebrity, the sculptor Brehat, who was dying of consumption, and owed the prolonging of his existence to this princely hospitality.  The neighbourhood of this dying celebrity—­of which the hotel-keeper was proud, and which he would have liked to charge in the bill—­the name of Brehat, which de Gery had so often heard pronounced with admiration in Felicia Ruys’s studio, brought back his thoughts to the beautiful face, with its pure lines, which he had last seen in the Bois de Boulogue, leaning on Mora’s shoulder.  What had become of this unfortunate girl when this prop had failed her?  Would this lesson be of use to her in the future?  And, by a strange coincidence, while he was thinking thus of Felicia, a great white greyhound was bounding up an alley of green trees on the slopes of the neighbouring garden.  It was like Kadour—­the same short hair, the same mouth, red, fierce, and delicate.  Paul, before his open window, was assailed in a moment by all sorts of visions, sad or charming.  Perhaps the beauty of the scene before his eyes made his thoughts wander.  Under the orange-trees and lemon-trees in rows, laden with their golden fruit, stretched immense fields of violets in regular and packed beds, separated by little irrigation canals, whose white stone cut up the exuberant verdure.

An exquisite ordour of violets dried in the sun was rising—­a hot boudoir scent, enervating, enfeebling, which called up for de Gery feminine visions—­Aline, Felicia—­permeating the fairy-like landscape, in this blue-charged atmosphere, this heavenly day, which one might have called the perfume become visible of so many open flowers.  The creaking of a door made him open his eyes.  Some one had just gone into the next room.  He heard the rustle of a dress against the thin partition, a leaf turned in a book which could not be very interesting, for a long sigh turning into a yawn made him start.  Was he still sleeping, dreaming?  Had he not heard the cry of the “jackal in the desert,” so much in keeping with the burning temperature out of doors?  No—­nothing more.  He fell asleep again, and this time all the confused images which pursued him fixed themselves in a dream—­a very pleasant dream.

He was on his honeymoon with Aline.  She was a delicious wife, her clear eyes full of love and faith, which only knew, only looked at him.  In this very room, on the other side of the partition, she was sitting in white morning dress, which smelt of violets and of the fine lace of her trousseau.  They were having breakfast—­one of those solitary breakfasts of a honeymoon, served in their bedroom, opposite the blue sea, and the clear sky, which tinge with azure the glass in which one drinks, the eyes where one sees one’s self, the future—­life—­the distant horizon.  Oh! how good it was; what a divine youth-giving light; how happy they were!