their secrets. She guessed the reason why he had talked.

"Jacques, do not be cross at what I say to you. You are not skilful in
concealing your sentiments. He suspected you were in love with me, and
he wished to be sure of it. I am persuaded that now he has no doubt of
our relations. But that is indifferent to me. On the contrary, if you
knew better how to dissimulate, I should be less happy. I should think
you did not love me enough."

For fear of disquieting him, she turned to other thoughts:

"I have not told you how much I like your sketch. It is Florence on the
Arno. Then it is we?"

"Yes, I have placed in that figure the emotion of my love. It is sad,
and I wish it were beautiful. You see, Therese, beauty is painful. That
is why, since life is beautiful, I suffer."

He took out of his flannel coat his cigarette-holder, but she told him
to dress. She would take him to breakfast with her. They would not quit
each other that day. It would be delightful.

She looked at him with childish joy. Then she became sad, thinking
she would have to return to Dinard at the end of the week, later go to
Joinville, and that during that time they would be separated.

At Joinville, at her father's, she would cause him to be invited for a
few days. But they would not be free and alone there, as they were in
Paris.

"It is true," he said, "that Paris is good to us in its confused
immensity."

And he added:

"Even in your absence I can not quit Paris. It would be terrible for
me to live in countries that do not know you. A sky, mountains, trees,
fountains, statues which do not know how to talk of you would have
nothing to say to me."

While he was dressing she turned the leaves of a book which she had
found on the table. It was The Arabian Nights. Romantic engravings
displayed here and there in the text grand viziers, sultanas, black
tunics, bazaars, and caravans.

She asked:

"The Arabian Nights-does that amuse you?"

"A great deal," he replied, tying his cravat. "I believe as much as I
wish in these Arabian princes whose legs become black marble, and in
these women of the harem who wander at night in cemeteries. These tales
give me pleasant dreams which make me forget life. Last night I went to
bed in sadness and read the history of the Three Calendars."

She said, with a little bitterness:

"You are trying to forget. I would not consent for anything in the world
to lose the memory of a pain which came to me from