Then came a couple of
years of opium-eating, fierce social excitement, divorce, new marriage,
and so on, until her husband agreeably decided to live in Nice, while she
lived somewhere else. Four days after I had met her at the dinner I saw
her again. I could scarcely believe my eyes. The woman had changed
completely. She was young again-twenty-five, in face and carriage, in
the eye and hand, in step and voice."
"Who was the man?" suggested Frank Armour. "A man about her own age,
or a little more, but who was an infant beside her in knowledge of the
world." "She was in love with the fellow? It was a grande passion?"
asked Lambert.
"In love with him? No, not at all. It was a momentary revival of an
old-possibility."
"You mean that such women never really love?"
"Perhaps once, Frank, but only after a fashion. The rest was mere
imitation of their first impulses."
"And this woman?"
"Well, the end came sooner than I expected. I tell you I was shocked at
the look in her face when I saw it again.
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