t me with eyes of invincible innocence and began to glide
towards the door, so smoothly that the flame of the candle hardly swayed.
"Good-night," she murmured.

"Good-night, Mademoiselle."

Then in the very doorway she turned right round as a marionette would
turn.

"Oh, you ought to know, my dear young Monsieur, that Mr. Blunt, the dear
handsome man, has arrived from Navarre three days ago or more. Oh," she
added with a priceless air of compunction, "he is such a charming
gentleman."

And the door shut after her.

CHAPTER IV

That night I passed in a state, mostly open-eyed, I believe, but always
on the border between dreams and waking. The only thing absolutely
absent from it was the feeling of rest. The usual sufferings of a youth
in love had nothing to do with it. I could leave her, go away from her,
remain away from her, without an added pang or any augmented
consciousness of that torturing sentiment of distance so acute that often
it ends by wearing itself out in a few days. Far or near was all one to
me, as if one could never get any further but also never any nearer to
her secret: the state like that of some strange wild faiths that get hold
of mankind with the cruel mystic grip of unattainable perfection, robbing
them of both liberty and felicity on earth. A faith presents one with
some hope, though. But I had no hope, and not even desire as a thing
outside myself, that would come and go, exhaust or excite. It was in me
just like life was in me; that life of which a popular saying affirms
that "it is sweet." For the general wisdom of mankind will always stop
short on the limit of the formidable.

What is best in a state of brimful, equable suffering is that it does
away with the gnawings of petty sensations. Too far gone to be sensible
to hope and desire I was spared the inferior pangs of elation and
impatience. Hours with her or hours without her were all alike, all in
her possession! But still there are shades and I will admit that the
hours of that morning were perhaps a little more difficult to get through
than the others. I had sent word of my arrival of course. I had written
a note. I had rung the bell. Therese had appeared herself in her brown
garb and as monachal as ever. I had said to her:

"Have this sent off at once."

She had gazed at the addressed envelope, smiled (I was looking up at her
from my desk), and at last took it up with an effort of sanctimonious
repugn