She yielded, two years later, to Robert Le Menil, who had desired her ardently, with all the warmth of his youth, with all the simplicity of his mind.  She said to herself:  “I gave myself to him because he loved me.”  It was the truth.  The truth was, also, that a dumb yet powerful instinct had impelled her, and that she had obeyed the hidden impulse of her being.  But even this was not her real self; what awakened her nature at last was the fact that she believed in the sincerity of his sentiment.  She had yielded as soon as she had felt that she was loved.  She had given herself, quickly, simply.  He thought that she had yielded easily.  He was mistaken.  She had felt the discouragement which the irreparable gives, and that sort of shame which comes of having suddenly something to conceal.  Everything that had been whispered before her about other women resounded in her burning ears.  But, proud and delicate, she took care to hide the value of the gift she was making.  He never suspected her moral uneasiness, which lasted only a few days, and was replaced by perfect tranquillity.  After three years she defended her conduct as innocent and natural.

Having done harm to no one, she had no regrets.  She was content.  She was in love, she was loved.  Doubtless she had not felt the intoxication she had expected, but does one ever feel it?  She was the friend of the good and honest fellow, much liked by women who passed for disdainful and hard to please, and he had a true affection for her.  The pleasure she gave him and the joy of being beautiful for him attached her to this friend.  He made life for her not continually delightful, but easy to bear, and at times agreeable.

That which she had not divined in her solitude, notwithstanding vague yearnings and apparently causeless sadness, he had revealed to her.  She knew herself when she knew him.  It was a happy astonishment.  Their sympathies were not in their minds.  Her inclination toward him was simple and frank, and at this moment she found pleasure in the idea of meeting him the next day in the little apartment where they had met for three years.  With a shake of the head and a shrug of her shoulders, coarser than one would have expected from this exquisite woman, sitting alone by the dying fire, she said to herself:  “There!  I need love!”

CHAPTER II

“One can see that you are young!”

It was no longer daylight when they came out of the little apartment in the Rue Spontini.  Robert Le Menil made a sign to a coachman, and entered the carriage with Therese.  Close together, they rolled among the vague shadows, cut by sudden lights, through the ghostly city, having in their minds only sweet and vanishing impressions while everything around them seemed confused and fleeting.