Would it not be better, for the sake of appearances, to act, with Olivier Bertin himself, the hypocritical comedy of indifference and forgetfulness, to show him that she had effaced that moment from her memory and from her life?

But could she do it?  Would she have the audacity to appear to recollect nothing, to assume a look of indignant astonishment in saying:  “What would you with me?” to the man with whom she had actually shared that swift and ardent emotion?

She reflected a long time, and decided that any other solution was impossible.

She would go to him courageously the next day, and make him understand as soon as she could what she desired him to do.  She must not use a word, an allusion, a look, that could recall to him that moment of shame.

After he had suffered—­for assuredly he would have his share of suffering, as a loyal and upright man—­he would remain in future that which he had been up to the present.

As soon as this new resolution was formed, she gave her address to the coachman and returned home, profoundly depressed, with a desire to take to her bed, to see no one, to sleep and forget.  Having shut herself up in her room, she remained there until the dinner hour, lying on a couch, benumbed, not wishing to agitate herself longer with that thought so full of danger.

She descended at the exact hour, astonished to find herself so calm, and awaited her husband with her ordinary demeanor.  He appeared, carrying their little one in his arms; she pressed his hand and kissed the child, and felt no pang of anguish.

Monsieur de Guilleroy inquired what she had been doing.  She replied indifferently that she had been posing, as usual.

“And the portrait—­is it good?” he asked.

“It is coming on very well.”

He spoke of his own affairs, in his turn; he enjoyed talking, while dining, of the sitting of the Chamber, and of the discussion of the proposed law on the adulteration of food-stuffs.

This rather tiresome talk, which she usually endured amiably, now irritated her, and made her look with closer attention at the man who was vulgarly loquacious in his interest in such things; but she smiled as she listened, and replied pleasantly, more gracious even than usual, more indulgent toward these banalities.  As she looked at him she thought:  “I have deceived him!  He is my husband, and I have deceived him!  How strange it is!  Nothing can change that fact, nothing can obliterate it!  I closed my eyes.  I submitted for a few seconds, a few seconds only, to a man’s kisses, and I am no longer a virtuous woman.  A few seconds in my life—­seconds that never can be effaced—­have brought into it that little irreparable fact, so grave, so short, a crime, the most shameful one for a woman—­and yet I feel no despair!  If anyone had told me that yesterday, I should not have believed it.  If anyone had convinced me that it would indeed come to pass, I should have thought instantly of the terrible remorse that would fill my heart to-day.”