les with
monsieur. I do not want to sleep in the wood."

"Yes, my dear," he replied gently. "Where shall I find you?"

A restaurant had been recommended to me. I gave him the address.

He turned back and, stooping down as he searched the ground with anxious
eyes, he moved away, screaming "tuituit" every few moments.

We could see him for some time until the growing darkness concealed all
but his outline, but we heard his mournful "tuituit," shriller and
shriller as the night grew darker.

As for me, I stepped along quickly and happily in the soft twilight, with
this little unknown woman leaning on my arm. I tried to say pretty things
to her, but could think of nothing. I remained silent, disturbed,
enchanted.

Our path was suddenly crossed by a high road. To the right I perceived a
town lying in a valley.

What was this place? A man was passing. I asked him. He replied:

"Bougival."

I was dumfounded.

"What, Bougival? Are you sure?"

"Parbleu, I belong there!"

The little woman burst into an idiotic laugh.

I proposed that we should take a carriage and drive to Versailles. She
replied:

"No, indeed. This is very funny and I am very hungry. I am really quite
calm. My husband will find his way all right. It is a treat to me to be
rid of him for a few hours."

We went into a restaurant beside the water and I ventured to ask for a
private compartment. We had some supper. She sang, drank champagne,
committed all sorts of follies.

That was my first serious flirtation.

OUR LETTERS

Eight hours of railway travel induce sleep for some persons and insomnia
for others with me, any journey prevents my sleeping on the following
night.

At about five o'clock I arrived at the estate of Abelle, which belongs to
my friends, the Murets d'Artus, to spend three weeks there. It is a
pretty house, built by one of their grandfathers in the style of the
latter half of the last century. Therefore it has that intimate character
of dwellings that have always been inhabited, furnished and enlivened by
the same people. Nothing changes; nothing alters the soul of the
dwelling, from which the furniture has never been taken out, the
tapestries never unnailed, thus becoming worn out, faded, discolored, on
the same walls. None of the old furniture leaves the place; only from
time to time it is moved a little to make room for a new piece, which
enters there like a new-born infant in the midst of brothers and sisters.