kness came on, I took
my station near the window. Presently I saw the balcony shining with the
light that streamed through the windows of the neighboring apartment. At
once I slipped quietly out upon my balcony, and stepped softly over the
ironwork that separated the two parts. Although I knew that I was exposing
myself to a positive danger, either of falling and breaking my neck, or of
finding myself face to face with a man, I experienced no perturbation.
Reaching the lighted window without having made the slightest noise, I
found it partly open; its curtains, which for me were quite transparent
since I was on the dark side of the window, made me wholly invisible to
any one who should look toward the window from the interior of the room.

"I saw a vast chamber furnished quite elegantly, though it was obviously
out of repair, and lighted by a lamp suspended from the ceiling. At the
end of the room was a low sofa upon which was reclining a woman who seemed
to me to be both young and pretty. Her loosened hair fell over her
shoulders in a rain of gold. She was looking at herself in a hand mirror,
patting herself, passing her arms over her lips, and twisting about her
supple body with a curiously feline grace. Every movement that she made
caused her long hair to ripple in glistening undulations.

"As I gazed upon her I confess that I felt a little troubled, especially
when all of a sudden the young girl's eyes were fixed upon me--strange
eyes, eyes of a phosphorescent green that gleamed like the flame of a
lamp. I was sure that I was invisible, being on the dark side of a
curtained window. That was simple enough, yet nevertheless I felt that I
was seen. The girl, in fact, uttered a cry, and then turned and buried her
face in the sofa-pillows.

"I raised the window, rushed into the room toward the sofa, and leaned
over the face that she was hiding. As I did so, being really very
remorseful, I began to excuse and to accuse myself, calling myself all
sorts of names, and begging pardon for my indiscretion. I said that I
deserved to be driven from her presence, but begged not to be sent away
without at least a word of pardon. For a long time I pleaded thus without
success, but at last she slowly turned, and I saw that her fair young face
was stirred with just the faintest suggestion of a smile. When she caught
a glimpse of me she murmured something of which I did not then quite get
the meaning.

"'It is you,' she cried out; '