By way of expressing his thanks, he murmured in her ear:  “I have a mad desire to embrace you!”

A warm wave of emotion swept over her, and, raising her shining eyes to his, she repeated her question:  “You love me always, then?”

He replied, with the intonation she wished to hear, and which she had not heard before: 

“Yes, I love you, my dear Any.”

“Come often to see me in the evenings,” she said.  “Now that I have my daughter I shall not go out very much.”

Since she had recognized in him this unexpected reawakening of tenderness, her heart was stirred with great happiness.  In view of Olivier’s silvery hair, and the calming touch of time, she had not suspected that he was fascinated by another woman, but she was terribly afraid that, from pure dread of loneliness, he might marry.  This fear, which was of long standing, increased constantly, and set her wits to contriving plans whereby she might have him near her as much as possible, and to see that he should not pass long evenings alone in the chill silence of his empty rooms.  Not being always able to hold and keep him, she would suggest amusements for him, sent him to the theater, forced him to go into society, being better pleased to know that he was mingling with many other women than alone in his gloomy house.

She resumed, answering his secret thought:  “Ah, if I could only have you always with me, how I should spoil you!  Promise me to come often, since I hardly go out at all now.”

“I promise it.”

At that moment a voice murmured “Mamma!” in her ear.

The Countess started and turned.  Annette, the Duchess, and the Marquis had just rejoined them.

“It is four o’clock,” said the Duchess.  “I am very tired and I wish to go now.”

“I will go, too; I have had enough of it,” said the Countess.

They reached the interior stairway which divides the galleries where the drawings and water-colors are hung, overlooking the immense garden inclosed in glass, where the works of sculpture are exhibited.

From the platform of this stairway they could see from one end to the other of this great conservatory, filled with statues set up along the pathway around large green shrubs, and below was the crowd which covered the paths like a moving black wave.  The marbles rose from this mass of dark hats and shoulders, piercing it in a thousand places, and seeming almost luminous in their dazzling whiteness.

As Bertin took leave of the ladies at the door of exit, Madame de Guilleroy whispered: 

“Then—­will you come this evening?”

“Yes, certainly.”

Bertin reentered the Exposition, to talk with the artists over the impressions of the day.