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“You don’t love me as I love you,” she murmured.

“Oh, why do you say—”

She interrupted him, saying, “No, in me you love, as you put it so well before dinner, a woman who satisfies the wants of your heart, a woman who’s never caused you pain and who’s managed to put a little happiness into you…

The painter, bareheaded, eyes shining, was breathing deeply, and as he caught the countess’s glance he said, “This is happiness.”

She came nearer. “It never lasts.”

“Let’s take it when it comes.”

Her life till now had been spent almost without suffering, varied only by Olivier’s affection and agitated only by the desire to retain it. She had succeeded, had been always victorious in that struggle. Her heart, lulled by success and flattery, having become the exacting organ of a lovely worldli…

Her coquetry, always on the alert but always accentuated since she felt on all sides certain hints, as yet almost imperceptible, of the innumerable attacks of age, took a more active form. To become as slender as Annette she continued to drink nothing, and the real slenderness of her waist restored…

smiles that were almost tender and satisfied, a familiar and officious gallantry