“But, above all,” she said at length, rising from her knees, “let me show proper pride.”

She bathed her fevered face in cold water, then she walked up to her mirror.  As she gazed at herself with a strange interest, trying to see whether the entire change so suddenly accomplished in herself had left its visible traces on her features, she seemed to see something in her eyes that spoke of the clairvoyance of despair.  She smiled at herself, to see whether the new Jacqueline could play the part, which—­whether she would or not—­was now assigned to her.  What a sad smile it was!

“I have lost everything,” she said, “I have lost everything!” And she remembered, as one remembers something in the far-off long ago, how that very morning, when she awoke, her first thought had been “Shall I see him to-day?” Each day she passed without seeing him had seemed to her a lost day, and she had accustomed herself to go to sleep thinking of him, remembering all he had said to her, and how he had looked at her.  Of course, sometimes she had been unhappy, but what a difference it seemed between such vague unhappiness and what she now experienced?  And then, when she was sad, she could always find a refuge in that dear mamma—­in that Clotilde whom she vowed she would never kiss again, except with such kisses as might be necessary to avoid suspicion.  Kisses of that kind were worth nothing.  Quite the contrary!  Could she kiss her father now without a pang?  Her father!  He had gone wholly over to the side of that other in this affair.  She had seen him in one moment turn against herself.  No!—­no one was left her!....  If she could only lay her head in Modeste’s lap and be soothed while she crooned her old songs as in the nursery!  But, whatever Marien or any one else might choose to say, she was no longer a baby.  The bitter sense of her isolation arose in her.  She could hardly breathe.  Suddenly she pressed her lips upon the glass which reflected her own image, so sad, so pale, so desolate.  She put the pity for herself into a long, long, fervent kiss, which seemed to say:  “Yes, I am all alone—­alone forever.”  Then, in a spirit of revenge, she opened what seemed a safety-valve, preventing her from giving way to any other emotion.

She rushed for a little box which she had converted into a sort of reliquary.  She took out of it the half-burned cigarette, the old glove, the withered violets, and a visiting-card with his name, on which three unimportant lines had been written.  She insulted these keepsakes, she tore them with her nails, she trampled them underfoot, she reduced them to fragments; she left nothing whatever of them, except a pile of shreds, which at last she set fire to.  She had a feeling as if she were employed in executing two great culprits, who deserved cruel tortures at her hands; and, with them, she slew now and forever the foolish fancy she had called her love.  By a strange association of ideas, the famous composition, so praised by M. Regis, came back to her memory, and she cried: