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 That we would never do, that we promised each other most solemnly.

Now whenever we met we were no longer bound to each other. We did not make engagements long beforehand. If we did not meet we took it for granted, and when we did it was like two old friends who by chance spend a jolly evening together. We would realise the golden idea of liberty and irresponsibility.

In this new rôle Marie charmed me completely. She talked like a book—so logical, so incontrovertible. It was just so I wanted her to be, now, when in reality I had done with her, and yet valued her too much to quite lose sight of her.

Other women, women for whom love is not a natural gift, women in whom the love-instinct is blunt and merely made up of a lot of silly sentimental theories, would not have acted so cleverly. They would have thought: Now that he is once more dangling on the hook, is the time to advance one's claims. Wrapped in their precious cloak of female dignity, they would have forced me to purchase every concession by a new charter—and I would have told such mercenary creatures to go to Jericho.

Marie was neither dignified nor mercenary. She held out to me a basket filled with rich fruits and fragrant flowers, begging me to choose freely, and she was happy when I wanted to be refreshed. Her basket was more beautiful and more tempting than ever it was before.