chunk: As tensions mount, the Comte openly breaks with his wife, Madame de Clairin urges Longmore to woo Madame de Mauves, and then she tells Madame de Mauves what she has told Longmore. Longmore agonises over how to proceed; he finds it difficult even to decide to continue his daily visits: "His presence now might be simply a gratuitous cause of suffering; and yet his absence might seem to imply that it was in the power of circumstances to make them ashamed to meet each other's eyes." Eventually he visits Madame de Mauves, who rather cryptically asks him to confirm her very high opinion of him by doing the proper thing: "Don't disappoint me. If you don't understand me now, you will to-morrow, or very soon. When I said just now that I had a very high opinion of you, I meant it very seriously. It was not a vain compliment. I believe that there is no appeal one may make to your generosity which can remain long unanswered. If this were to happen,—if I were to find you selfish where I thought