ter. The day after our mutual explanation, I took every care to
maintain our relations upon the footing of good-fellowship on which they
seemed established, and which constituted, in my idea, the only sort of
intelligence desirable and even possible between us. It seemed to me, on
that day, that she manifested the same vivacity and the same spirit as
usual; yet I fancied that her voice and her look, when she addressed me,
assumed a meek gravity which is not part of her usual disposition; but on
the following days, though I had not deviated from the line of conduct I
had marked out for myself, it became impossible for me not to notice that
Madame de Palme had lost something of her gayety, and that a vague
preoccupation clouded the serenity of her brow. I could see her
dancing-partners surprised at her frequent absence of mind; she still
followed the whirl, but she no longer led it. Under pretext of fatigue,
she would leave suddenly and abruptly her partner's arm, in the midst of a
waltz, to go and sit in some corner with a pensive and even a pouting
look. If there happened to be a vacant seat next to mine, she threw
herself into it, and began from behind her fan some whimsical and
disjointed conversation like the following:

"If I cannot be a hermit, I am going to become a nun. What would you say,
if you saw me enter a convent to-morrow?"

"I should say that you would leave it the day after to-morrow."

"You have no confidence in my resolutions?"

"When they are unwise, no."

"I can only form unwise ones, according to you?"

"According to me, you waltz admirably. When a person waltzes as you do,
it's an art, almost a virtue."

"Is it customary to flatter one's friends?"

"I am not flattering you. I never speak a single word to you that I have
not carefully weighed, and that is not the most earnest expression of my
thought. I am a serious man, madam."

"It does not seem so when you are with me. I verily believe, however, you
have undertaken to make me hate laughter as much as I used to like it."

"I do not understand you."

"How do you think I look to-night?"

"Dazzling!"

"That's too much! I know that I am not handsome."

"I don't say you are handsome, but you are extremely graceful."

"That's better; and it must be true, for I feel it. The Malabar Widow is
really handsome."

"Yes, I should like to see her at the funeral pile."

"To jump into it with her?"

"Exactly."

"Do you expect to leave soon