I experienced a sort of vertigo, of fearful attraction, similar to that which draws you to look down a precipice when you are walking at its edge.
Unless the weather was too cold or rainy, the nurse brought Irene to me every day.
By degrees she returned to blooming health.
About a fortnight after our first meeting, she brought me a large bouquet of roses, telling me her mother sent them, but, unfortunately, they were not as beautiful as the roses of Khios.
This souvenir of Catherine's overjoyed me, for I had spoken to her with enthusiasm of those lovely roses.
Every day after that Irene brought me roses; and every day also she told me, with an air of mystery, without ever making a mistake, what her mother would do that evening, whether she was going to court, or in society, or to the theatre.
Thanks to this amiable forethought of Madame de Fersen, I met her very frequently. I went regularly to her receptions, and, therefore, saw her almost every evening; but as in society I confined myself to greeting her most respectfully, exchanging merely a few ceremonious words, our meetings were unobserved.
Once or twice I called on her of a morning; but by a singular chance, or rather in consequence of the assiduities with which she was surrounded, I never found her alone.
Had I asked her for a private interview she would have granted it, but, true to the plan I had mapped out, I would not ask for it at present.
Besides, a smile, a glance that we mysteriously exchanged in the crowd, did it not repay me a thousand times for my reserve and my discretion?