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“By the way,” she said, “I studied something for you before mother died, but you haven’t heard it yet. I’ll play it when the little one’s finished. I want you to hear how strange it is.”

The countess had real talent, and a subtle comprehension of the emotion that flows through sound. It had alwa…

Yet the countess reproached him with being jealous of the marquis. Was it true? He again examined his conscience severely, and ascertained that in truth he was a little jealous. What was astonishing about that, after all? Are we not at every instant jealous of men who pay their court to no matter w…

Then she was possessed with a sudden, irresistible desire to go away, to leave at once by the first train, to quit the country where one perceived too clearly by the strong light of the fields the indelible traces of sorrow and years. In Paris one lives in the half shadow of apartments, where heavy…

“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.”