“Kiss each other, like old acquaintances,” said the painter, laughing, with the air of a man who is loved and sure of himself.

But Amedee contented himself with kissing the tips of her glove, and the glance with which Maria thanked him for this reserve was one more torture for him to endure.  She was grateful to him and gave him a kind smile.

“My mother and my sister,” said she, graciously, “often have the pleasure of a visit from you, Monsieur Amedee.  I hope that you will not make us jealous, but come often to see Maurice and me.”

“Maurice and me!” How soft and tender her voice and eyes became as she said these simple words, “Maurice and me!” Ah, were they not one!  How she loved him!  How she loved him!

Then Amedee must admire the baby, who was now awake in his nurse’s arms, aroused by his father’s noisy gayety.  The child opened his blue eyes, as serious as those of an old man’s, and peeped out from the depth of lace, feebly squeezing the finger that the poet extended to him.

“What do you call him?” asked Amedee, troubled to find anything to say.

“Maurice, after his father,” quickly responded Maria, who also put a mint of love into these words.

Amedee could endure no more.  He made some pretext for withdrawing and went away, promising that he would see them again soon.

“I shall not go there very often!” he said to himself, as he descended the steps, furious with himself that he was obliged to hold back a sob.

He went there, however, and always suffered from it.  He was the one who had made this marriage; he ought to rejoice that Maurice, softened by conjugal life and paternity, did not return to his recklessness of former days; but, on the contrary, the sight of this household, Maria’s happy looks, the allusions that she sometimes made of gratitude to Amedee; above all Maurice’s domineering way in his home, his way of speaking to his wife like an indulgent master to a slave delighted to obey, all displeased and unmanned him.  He always left Maurice’s displeased with himself, and irritated with the bad sentiments that he had in his heart; ashamed of loving another’s wife, the wife of his old comrade; and keeping up all the same his friendship for Maurice, whom he was never able to see without a feeling of envy and secret bitterness.

He managed to lengthen the distance between his visits to the young pair, and to put another interest into his life.  He was now a man of leisure, and his fortune allowed him to work when he liked and felt inspired.  He returned to society and traversed the midst of miscellaneous parlors, greenrooms, and Bohemian society.  He loitered about these places a great deal and lost his time, was interested by all the women, duped by his tender imagination; always expending too much sensibility in his fancies; taking his desires for love, and devoting himself to women.