ething inexhaustible in my heart, and I was sure, in the end, to
intoxicate her with this philtre, which I constantly poured out and
which she drank, while making sport of it like a child.

"One day I found her thoughtful and silent. She did not reply to me with
her usual sprightliness during the few moments that I was able to talk
with her; the expression of her eyes had changed; there was something
deeper and less glowing in their depths; instead of dazzling me by their
excessive splendor, as had often happened to me before, they seemed to
soften as they rested on mine; she kept her eyelids a trifle lowered, as
if she were tired of being gazed at by me. Her voice, as she spoke, had
a low, soft sound, a sort of inexplicable something which came from the
very depths of her soul. She never had looked at me with that glance or
spoken to me in that tone before. Upon that day I knew that she loved
me.

"I returned to my home unutterably happy, for I loved this woman with a
love of which I believed myself incapable.

"When I met Madame de Bergenheim again, I found her completely
changed toward me; an icy gravity, an impassible calm, an ironical and
disdainful haughtiness had taken the place of the delicious abandon of
her former bearing. In spite of my strong determination to allow myself
to love with the utmost candor, it was impossible for me to return to
that happy age when the frowning brows of the beautiful idol to whom we
paid court inspired us with the resolve to drown ourselves. I could not
isolate myself from my past experiences. My heart was rejuvenated, but
my head remained old. I was, therefore, not in the least discouraged by
this change of humor, and the fit of anger which it portended.

"'Now,' said I to myself, 'there is an end to coquetry, it is beaten on
all sides; it is gone, never to return. She has seen that the affair is
a little too deep for that, and the field not tenable. She will erect
barriers in order to defend herself and will no longer attack.' Thus we
pass from the period of amiable smiles, sweet glances, and half-avowals
to that of severity and prudery, while waiting for the remorse and
despair of the denouement. I am sure that at this time she called to
her help all her powers of resistance. From that day she would retreat
behind the line of duty, conjugal fidelity, honor, and all the other
fine sentiments which would need numbering after the fashion of Homer.
At the first attack, all this