However (continued Armand after a pause), while I knew myself to be
still in love with her, I felt more sure of myself, and part of my
desire to speak to Marguerite again was a wish to make her see that I
was stronger than she.

How many ways does the heart take, how many reasons does it invent for
itself, in order to arrive at what it wants!

I could not remain in the corridor, and I returned to my place in the
stalls, looking hastily around to see what box she was in. She was in a
ground-floor box, quite alone. She had changed, as I have told you, and
no longer wore an indifferent smile on her lips. She had suffered; she
was still suffering. Though it was April, she was still wearing a winter
costume, all wrapped up in furs.

I gazed at her so fixedly that my eyes attracted hers. She looked at me
for a few seconds, put up her opera-glass to see me better, and seemed
to think she recognised me, without being quite sure who I was, for when
she put down her glasses, a smile, that charming, feminine salutation,
flitted across her lips, as if to answer the bow which she seemed to
expect; but I did not respond, so as to have an advantage over her, as
if I had forgotten, while she remembered. Supposing herself mistaken,
she looked away.