When I awoke it was two o'clock. The weather was superb. I don't think life ever seemed to me so beautiful and so full of possibilities. The memories of the night before came to me without shadow or hindrance, escorted gaily by the hopes of the night to come. From time to time my heart leaped with love and joy in my breast. A sweet fever thrilled me. I thought no more of the reasons which had filled my mind before I slept. I saw only the result, I thought only of the hour when I was to see Marguerite again.

It was impossible to stay indoors. My room seemed too small to contain my happiness. I needed the whole of nature to unbosom myself.

I went out. Pa.s.sing by the Rue d'Antin, I saw Marguerite's coupe'

waiting for her at the door. I went toward the Champs-Elysees. I loved all the people whom I met. Love gives one a kind of goodness.

After I had been walking for an hour from the Marly horses to the Rond-Point, I saw Marguerite's carriage in the distance; I divined rather than recognised it. As it was turning the corner of the Champs-Elysees it stopped, and a tall young man left a group of people with whom he was talking and came up to her. They talked for a few moments; the young man returned to his friends, the horses set out again, and as I came near the group I recognised the one who had spoken to Marguerite as the Comte de G., whose portrait I had seen and whom Prudence had indicated to me as the man to whom Marguerite owed her position. It was to him that she had closed her doors the night before; I imagined that she had stopped her carriage in order to explain to him why she had done so, and I hoped that at the same time she had found some new pretext for not receiving him on the following night.

How I spent the rest of the day I do not know; I walked, smoked, talked, but what I said, whom I met, I had utterly forgotten by ten o'clock in the evening.

All I remember is that when I returned home, I spent three hours over my toilet, and I looked at my watch and my clock a hundred times, which unfortunately both pointed to the same hour.

When it struck half past ten, I said to myself that it was time to go.

I lived at that time in the Rue de Provence; I followed the Rue du Mont-Blanc, crossed the Boulevard, went up the Rue Louis-le-Grand, the Rue de Port-Mahon, and the Rue d'Antin. I looked up at Marguerite's windows. There was a light. I rang. I asked the porter if Mlle. Gautier was at home. He replied that she never came in before eleven or a quarter past eleven. I looked at my watch. I intended to come quite slowly, and I had come in five minutes from the Rue de Provence to the Rue d'Antin.

I walked to and fro in the street; there are no shops, and at that hour it is quite deserted. In half an hour's time Marguerite arrived. She looked around her as she got down from her coupe, as if she were looking for some one. The carriage drove off; the stables were not at the house. Just as Marguerite was going to ring, I went up to her and said, "Good-evening."

"Ah, it is you," she said, in a tone that by no means rea.s.sured me as to her pleasure in seeing me.

"Did you not promise me that I might come and see you to-day?"

"Quite right. I had forgotten."

This word upset all the reflections I had had during the day.

Nevertheless, I was beginning to get used to her ways, and I did not leave her, as I should certainly have done once. We entered. Nanine had already opened the door.

"Has Prudence come?" said Marguerite.

"No, madame."

"Say that she is to be admitted as soon as she comes. But first put out the lamp in the drawing-room, and if any one comes, say that I have not come back and shall not be coming back."

She was like a woman who is preoccupied with something, and perhaps annoyed by an unwelcome guest. I did not know what to do or say.

Marguerite went toward her bedroom; I remained where I was.

"Come," she said.

She took off her hat and her velvet cloak and threw them on the bed, then let herself drop into a great armchair beside the fire, which she kept till the very beginning of summer, and said to me as she fingered her watch-chain:

"Well, what news have you got for me?"

"None, except that I ought not to have come to-night."

"Why?"

"Because you seem vexed, and no doubt I am boring you."

"You are not boring me; only I am not well; I have been suffering all day. I could not sleep, and I have a frightful headache."

"Shall I go away and let you go to bed?"

"Oh, you can stay. If I want to go to bed I don't mind your being here."

At that moment there was a ring.

"Who is coming now?" she said, with an impatient movement.

A few minutes after there was another ring.

"Isn't there any one to go to the door? I shall have to go." She got up and said to me, "Wait here."

She went through the rooms, and I heard her open the outer door. I listened.

The person whom she had admitted did not come farther than the dining-room. At the first word I recognised the voice of the young Comte de N.

"How are you this evening?" he said.

"Not well," replied Marguerite drily.

"Am I disturbing you?"

"Perhaps.

"How you receive me! What have I done, my dear Marguerite?"

"My dear friend, you have done nothing. I am ill; I must go to bed, so you will be good enough to go. It is sickening not to be able to return at night without your making your appearance five minutes afterward.

What is it you want? For me to be your mistress? Well, I have already told you a hundred times, No; you simply worry me, and you might as well go somewhere else. I repeat to you to-day, for the last time, I don't want to have anything to do with you; that's settled. Good-bye. Here's Nanine coming in; she can light you to the door. Good-night."

Without adding another word, or listening to what the young man stammered out, Marguerite returned to the room and slammed the door.

Nanine entered a moment after.

"Now understand," said Marguerite, "you are always to say to that idiot that I am not in, or that I will not see him. I am tired out with seeing people who always want the same thing; who pay me for it, and then think they are quit of me. If those who are going to go in for our hateful business only knew what it really was they would sooner be chambermaids.

But no, vanity, the desire of having dresses and carriages and diamonds carries us away; one believes what one hears, for here, as elsewhere, there is such a thing as belief, and one uses up one's heart, one's body, one's beauty, little by little; one is feared like a beast of prey, scorned like a pariah, surrounded by people who always take more than they give; and one fine day one dies like a dog in a ditch, after having ruined others and ruined one's self."

"Come, come, madame, be calm," said Nanine; "your nerves are a bit upset to-night."

"This dress worries me," continued Marguerite, unhooking her bodice; "give me a dressing-gown. Well, and Prudence?"

"She has not come yet, but I will send her to you, madame, the moment she comes."

"There's one, now," Marguerite went on, as she took off her dress and put on a white dressing-gown, "there's one who knows very well how to find me when she is in want of me, and yet she can't do me a service decently. She knows I am waiting for an answer. She knows how anxious I am, and I am sure she is going about on her own account, without giving a thought to me."

"Perhaps she had to wait."

"Let us have some punch."

"It will do you no good, madame," said Nanine.