d, in a choked voice:
"Ah! pardon me, madame. I am ashamed of myself. My courage failed me; my
strength betrayed me. I love her madly, and I had sworn never to see her
again. It was in order to fly from her that I was going away."

He raised his head; he saw Antoinette; he looked wildly at her, as
though he did not recognise her.

He recognised her at last, made a gesture of alarm, rose precipitately,
and fled.

Mlle. Moriaz drew near Mme. de Lorcy, and said to her, "Well, what do
you think of it?"

"I think, my dear," she replied, "that Mme. de Lorcy is a fool, and that
Count Larinski is a powerful man."

Antoinette looked at her with a bitter smile, and touched her arm
lightly. "Admit, madame," she said, "that if he had a hundred thousand
livres' income, you would not think of doubting his sincerity."

Mme. de Lorcy did not reply; she could not say "No," and she was enraged
to feel that she was both right and wrong. It is an accident that
happens sometimes to women of the world.

CHAPTER VII

On her entering her coupe to return to Cormeilles, Mlle. Moriaz was the
prey of an agitation that did not calm down during the entire drive. Her
whole soul was stirred by a tender, passionate sentiment for the man who
had swooned away in taking farewell of her; she was filled with anger
against the foolish prejudices and the petty finesse of the people of
the world; filled with joy at having baffled a monstrous conspiracy
against her happiness; filled with pride because she had seen clearly,
because she had not mistaken in her choice, and because the man whom she
loved was worthy of being loved. During several days she had suffered
cruelly from anxiety, from actual agony of mind, and over and over
again she had said to herself, "Perhaps they are right." A woman's heart
believes itself to be at the mercy of error, and it is torture to it
to be obliged to doubt itself and its own clairvoyance. When it is
unmistakably demonstrated to it that its god is only an idol of wood
or of stone, that what was once adored must henceforth be despised, it
feels ready to die, and imagines that some spring must give way in the
vast machine of the universe, that the sky must fall, the earth crumble
away; and yet a woman's error of judgment is not a matter of such very
grave import. The sun continues to shine, the earth to revolve upon its
axis, as though it had not occurred. The machine of the universe would
be subject to quite too ma