"What mental anguish! Do you not realise what it means?"
Madame Arnoux turned away her beautiful face while she held out her hand to him; and they closed their eyes, absorbed in a kind of intoxication that was like a sweet, ceaseless rocking. Then they stood face to face, gazing at one another.
"Could you believe it possible that I no longer loved you?"
She replied in a low voice, full of caressing tenderness:
"No! in spite of everything, I felt at the bottom of my heart that it was impossible, and that one day the obstacle between us two would disappear!"
"So did I; and I was dying to see you again."
"I once passed close to you in the Palais-Royal!"
"Did you really?"
And he spoke to her of the happiness he experienced at coming across her again at the Dambreuses' house.
"But how I hated you that evening as I was leaving the place!"