"Her youthful laughter contrasted with her mourning garments and the mention of her age. However, she gave me no direct reply.
"'I never cared to come back to France. This return affects me more than I believed possible. It takes away my courage and determination, which were so natural to me over there. How we do feel the influence of environment! Here I am quite weakened!'
"I reproached her for not informing me of her arrival. I offered her my services and invited her to lunch with me on the following day. She made me ask her many times, and finally accepted. Gracious and shy by turns, she is more irresolute, less determined here than in England.
"While chatting, we stopped at the balustrade which borders the terrace. Between two vases of geraniums, we saw in the foreground, the large central lawn and the flower beds, and as a background, the leaves of the trees which limit the view of the garden. The watering-hose was at work. Children were playing. An old invalid, assisted by his wife, was greedily inhaling the evening air, as though for the last time. Pigeons were flying above us and one of them lighted on the raised hand of a stone goddess. It was the delicious hour when everything assumes a golden hue, when a man's brain, after the day's work, is unable to resist the soothing influence of such impressions.
"I watched her going toward the Avenue de l'Observatoire until she was out of sight. However, I preferred her in London, struggling bravely and somewhat subdued."
"June 13th: In inviting her to my home, I had no other thought than to establish pleasant relations and to give Elizabeth a friend of stimulating influence, because of her active intelligence and the charm of her society. No, truly, I had no other thought. Had she even inspired in me a more passionate interest, I should never have permitted this emotion to go beyond that inner sanction, where each one retains his individual liberty. I should have conquered my exaltation and bitterness alone.
"Well, after Anne de Sézery's departure, I asked Elizabeth her impression. I had told her that morning that Mlle. de Sézery, completely crushed by fate, had remolded her life.
"'Yes, I know she has been pretty,' she answered. 'But now she has too little hair and too big a mouth.'
"I had not noticed it. But I knew her eyes, her face, her figure. Why so much injustice? I was not seeking a detailed description. When everything has been made easy for us, when we have exerted neither effort nor will-power, why show ourselves to be so miserably contemptuous? There are words so unkind that they become fixed in our memory like milestones and serve to measure the distance which separates us from those who have uttered them."
"June 25th: I made no attempt after this setback to invite Anne de Sézery to my house again. We are near neighbors: I am going to call on her in the Rue Cassini. It is a little deserted street, hidden by the trees on the Avenue de l'Observatoire. No one goes through it, and one might think oneself very far from Paris. We are both going away—she to London, where she must discontinue her former life, and I to the country. Each visit should have been the last. But day by day our departure was deferred. In the evening after my work I meet her returning from her walk, and we both find relaxation in a few minutes' conversation.