She had but one thought: to take to flight. To fly from his mastery, to fly from the emanation of that dominion which, mysteriously but irrevocably, wiped away with his caress all that was in her of will, energy and self. She remembered having felt the same thing in the old days: rebellion and anger when he became angry and coarse, but an eclipse of self when he caressed her; an inability to think when he merely laid his hand upon her head; a swooning away into a vast nothingness when he took her in his arms and kissed her. She had felt it from the first time of seeing him, when he stood before her and looked down upon her with that light irony in the smile of his eyes and his moustache, as though he took pleasure in her resistance—at that time prompted by flirting and fun, soon by petulance, later by anger and fury—as though he took pleasure in her futile feminine attempts to escape his power. He had at once realized that he ruled this woman. And she had found in him her master, her sole master. For no other man pressed down upon her with that empire which was of the blood, of the flesh. On the contrary, she was usually the superior. She had about her a cool indifference which was always provoking her to destructive criticism. She had a need for fun, for cheerful conversation, for coquetry, for flirtation; and, always a mistress of quick repartee, she invited the occasion for repartee; but, apart from this, men meant little to her and she always saw the absurd side of each of them, thinking this one too short, that one too tall, a third clumsy, a fourth stupid, finding something in every one of them to rouse her laughter, her mockery or her criticism. She would never be a woman to give herself to many. She had met Duco and given herself to him with her love, wholly, as one great inseparable golden gift; and after him she would never fall in love again. But before Duco she had met Rudolph Brox. Perhaps, if she had met him after Duco, his mastery would not have swayed her. She did not know. And what was the good of thinking about it. The thing was as it was. In her blood she was not a woman for many; in her blood she was the wife, the spouse, the consort. Of the man who had been her husband she was in her flesh and in her blood the wife; and she was his wife even without love. For she could not call this love: she gave the name of love only to that other passion, that proud, tender and intense completion of life’s harmony, that journey along one golden line, the marriage of two gleaming lines.... But the phantom hands had risen all about them in a cloud, the hands had mysteriously and inevitably divided their golden line; and hers, a winding curve, had leapt back, like a quivering spring, crossing a darker line of former days, a sombre line of the past, a dark track full of unconscious action and fatal bondage. Oh, the strangeness, the most mysterious strangeness of those lines of life! Why should they curl back, force her backwards to her original starting-point? Why had it all been necessary?

She had but one thought: to take to flight. She did not see the inevitability of those lines and the fatality of those paths and she did not wish to feel the pressure of the phantom hands that rose about her. To fly, to turn up the dusky path, back to the point of separation, back to Duco, and with him to rebraid and twist the two lost directions into one pure movement, one line of happiness!...

To fly, to fly! She told Urania that she was going. She begged Urania to forgive her, because it was she who had recommended her to the old woman whom she was now suddenly leaving. And she told Mrs. Uxeley, without caring for her anger, her temper or her words of abuse. She admitted that she was ungrateful. But there was a vital necessity which compelled her suddenly to leave Nice. She swore that it existed. She swore that it would mean unhappiness, even ruin, were she to stay. She explained it to Urania in a single sentence. But she did not explain it to the old woman and left her in an impotent fury which made her writhe with rheumatic aches and pains. She left behind her everything that she had received from Mrs. Uxeley, all the superfluous wardrobe of her dependence. She put on an old frock. She went to the station like a criminal, trembling lest she should meet him. But she knew that at this hour he was always at Monte Carlo. Nevertheless she went in a closed cab and she took a second-class ticket for Florence. She telegraphed to Duco. And she fled.

She had nothing left but him. She could never again count upon Mrs. Uxeley; and Urania had behaved coolly, not understanding that singular flight, because she did not understand the simple truth, Rudolph Brox’ power. She thought that CornÉlie was making things difficult for herself. In the circle in which Urania lived, her sense of social morality had wavered since her liaison with the Chevalier de Breuil. Hearing the Italian law of love whispered all around her, the law that love is as simple as an opening rose, she did not understand CornÉlie’s struggle. She no longer resented anything that Gilio did; and he in his turn left her free. What was happening to CornÉlie? Surely it was all very simple, if she was still fond of her divorced husband! Why should she run away to Duco and make herself ridiculous in the eyes of all their acquaintances? And so she had parted coolly from CornÉlie; but still she missed her friend. She was the Princess di Forte-Braccio; and lately, on her birthday, Prince Ercole had sent her a great emerald, out of the carefully kept family-jewels, as though she were becoming worthy of them gradually, stone by stone! But she missed CornÉlie and she felt lonely, deadly lonely, notwithstanding her emerald and her lover....

CornÉlie fled: she had nothing in the world but Duco. But in him she would have everything. And, when she saw him at Florence, at the Santa Maria Novella Station, she flung herself on his breast and clung to him as to a cross of redemption, a saviour. He led her sobbing to a cab; and they drove to his room. There she looked round her nervously, done up with the overstrain of her long journey, thinking every minute that Rudolph would come after her. She told Duco everything, opened her heart to him entirely, as though he were her conscience, as though he were her soul, her god. She nestled up against him, she told him that he must help her. It was as though she were praying to him; her anguish went up to him like a prayer. He kissed her; and she knew that manner of comforting, she knew that tender caressing. She suddenly fell against him, utterly relaxed; and so she continued to lie, with closed eyes. It was as though she were sinking in a lake, in a blue sacred lake, mystic as the Lake of San Stefano in the sleeping night, powdered with stars. And she heard him say that he would help her; that there was nothing in her fears; that that man had no power over her; that he would never have any power over her, if she became his, Duco’s, wife. She looked at him and did not understand what he was saying. She looked at him feverishly, as though he had awakened her suddenly while she lay sleeping for a second in the blue calmness of the mystic lake. She did not understand, but, dead-tired, she hid her face against his arm again and fell asleep.

She was dead-tired. She slept for two hours immovably, breathing deeply, upon his breast. When he shifted his arm, she just moved her head heavily, like a flower on a weary stalk, but she slept on. He stroked her forehead, her hair; and she slept on, with her hand in his. She slept as if she had not slept for days, for weeks.