I always let out too much when I'm in a rage." She began laughing.

Then taking him in her arms and kissing him on the forehead: "Good-by, baby," she said; "it's over, quite over between us; d'you understand?
And now I'm off!" And she left him, and he stood in the middle of the drawing room.

Her last words rang like the knell of a tocsin in his ears: "It's over, quite over!" And he thought the ground was opening beneath his feet.
There was a void in his brain from which the man awaiting Nana had disappeared.

Philippe alone remained there in the young woman's bare embrace forever and ever.

She did not deny it: she loved him, since she wanted to spare him the pain of her infidelity.