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 what woman? Do we not in the street, the restaurant, the theater, feel a sort of enmity against the gentleman who is passing or who enters with a beautiful woman on his arm? Every possessor of a woman is a rival. It is a man who has won, a conqueror, who is envied by the other men. And then, without entering into these physiological considerations, if it was natural that he should have for Annette a sympathy rendered somewhat too active by his love for her mother, was it not therefore natural that he should feel rising within him a little animal hatred of the future husband? He would have no difficulty in overcoming this ignoble person.