And yet, he speculated, who else could she be? The simultaneous presence of two young foreign women in this out-of-the-way country neighbourhood seemed, of all contingencies, the most unlikely. Well, if she really was . . .
He was conscious suddenly of a sensation to the last degree unfamiliar: a commotion, piercing, regretful, desirous, actually in his heart, an organ he had for years proudly fancied immune; and he took alarm.
"Am I eighteen again? Positively, I must not think of her any more."
But it was useless. In two minutes he was thinking of her harder than ever, and the commotion in his heart was renewed.
"If she really is Madame Torrebianca," he told himself, with a thrill and a craving, "I shall see her on Sunday."
The flowers, beyond there, in the sun, the droning of the bees, the liquid bird-notes, the perfumes in the still soft air, all seemed to melt and become part of his thought of her, rendering it more poignant, more insidiously sweet.
At last he started up, in a kind of anger.
"Bah!" he cried, "It's the weather. It's this imbecile, love-sick weather."
And he carried his writing-materials indoors, to the billiard-room, a northern room, looking into the big square court, where the light was colourless, and the only perfume on the air was a ghost-like perfume of last night's tobacco-smoke.
But I don't know that the change did much good. In a few minutes—