p his head, he gazed at the woman he had loved.

Yes, it was an old lady, an old lady whom he did not recognize, and who,
while she smiled, seemed ready to weep.

He could not abstain from murmuring:

"Is it you, Lise?"

She replied:

"Yes, it is I; it is I, indeed. You would not have known me, would you?
I have had so much sorrow--so much sorrow. Sorrow has consumed my life.
Look at me now--or, rather, don't look at me! But how handsome you have
kept--and young! If I had by chance met you in the street I would have
exclaimed: 'Jaquelet!'. Now, sit down and let us, first of all, have a
chat. And then I will call my daughter, my grown-up daughter. You'll
see how she resembles me--or, rather, how I resembled her--no, it is not
quite that; she is just like the 'me' of former days--you shall see! But
I wanted to be alone with you first. I feared that there would be some
emotion on my side, at the first moment. Now it is all over; it is past.
Pray be seated, my friend."

He sat down beside her, holding her hand; but he did not know what to
say; he did not know this woman--it seemed to him that he had never seen
her before. Why had he come to this house? What could he talk about? Of
the long ago? What was there in common between him and her? He could no
longer recall anything in presence of this grandmotherly face. He could
no longer recall all the nice, tender things, so sweet, so bitter,
that had come to his mind that morning when he thought of the other, of
little Lise, of the dainty Ashflower. What, then, had become of her,
the former one, the one he had loved? That woman of far-off dreams, the
blonde with gray eyes, the young girl who used to call him "Jaquelet" so
prettily?

They remained side by side, motionless, both constrained, troubled,
profoundly ill at ease.

As they talked only commonplaces, awkwardly and spasmodically and
slowly, she rose and pressed the button of the bell.

"I am going to call Renee," she said.

There was a tap at the door, then the rustle of a dress; then a young
voice exclaimed:

"Here I am, mamma!"

Lormerin remained bewildered as at the sight of an apparition.

He stammered:

"Good-day, mademoiselle."

Then, turning toward the mother:

"Oh! it is you!"

In fact, it was she, she whom he had known in bygone days, the Lise
who had vanished and come back! In her he found the woman he had won
twenty-five years before. This one was even younger, fresher, more
childlike.