She was now separated from her lover, and, thinking to win her back, he directed all his efforts to that end.
He put forth all his skill, showed himself sincere, adaptable, affectionate, devoted, even discreet; his heart taught him the delicacies of feeling.

He said charming and touching things to the faithless one, and, to soften her, he told her all that he had suffered.
Crossing the band of his trousers upon his stomach.
"See," said he, "how thin I have got." He promised her everything he thought could gratify a woman, country parties, hats, jewels.
Sometimes he thought she would take pity on him.
She no longer displayed an insolently happy countenance.

Being separated from Paul, her sadness had an air of gentleness.

But the moment he made a gesture to recover her she turned away fiercely and gloomily, girt with her fault as if with a golden girdle.
He did not give up, making himself humble, suppliant, lamentable.
One day he went to Lapersonne and said to him with tears in his eyes: "Will you speak to her ?" Lapersonne excused himself, thinking that his intervention would be useless, but he gave some advice to his friend.
"Make her think that you don't care about her, that you love another, and she will come back to you." Hippolyte, adopting this method, inserted in the newspapers that he was always to be found in the company of Mademoiselle Guinaud of the Opera.
He came home late or did not come home at all, assumed in Eveline's presence an appearance of inward joy impossible to restrain, took out of his pocket, at dinner, a letter on scented paper which he pretended to read with delight, and his lips seemed as in a dream to kiss invisible lips.

Nothing happened.