Page:A Virgin Heart.pdf/217

Rh vague jealousy which all men feel for one another. He had detested M. Hervart, without being able to keep himself from admiring the spectacle of his happiness. The desire to supplant him had naturally tormented Leonor; but it was one of those desires which one feels sure can never be realized and at which, in lucid moments, one shrugs one's shoulders. Since chance and his own good management had so much modiﬁed the logical sequence of things to his own proﬁt, Leonor had begun to tell himself that one should never doubt of anything, that anything may happen and that the impossible is probably the most reasonable thing in the world.

In these few weeks he had become more serious than ever, and above all more calm. His egotism began to be capable of long deviations from its straight course. He knew very well that Rose, if he hazarded a confession, would reply with indifference, perhaps with anger. His plan was to risk a few discreet insinuations on some suitable opportunity.

"I might," he reﬂected, "put on the melancholy, disenchanted look myself. She is ill, and it would be a case of one sick person seek-