nto the station.

A minute later she stepped on to the platform, dressed all in gray, with
roses in her cheeks, and a pair of gull's wings in her hat.

M. Charnot shook me by the hand, thoroughly delighted at having escaped
from the train and being able to shake himself and tread once more the
solid earth. He asked after my uncle, and when I replied that he was in
excellent health, he went to get his luggage.

"Well!" said Jeanne. "Is all arranged?"

"On the contrary, nothing is."

"Have you seen him?"

"Not even that. I have been watching for a favorable opportunity without
finding one. Yesterday evening he was busy with a visitor; this morning
he went out at six. He doesn't even know that I am in Bourges."

"And yet you were in his house?"

"I slept on a sofa in his library."

She gave me a look which was as much as to say, "My poor boy, how very
unpractical you are!"

"Go on doing nothing," she said; "that's the best you can do. If my
father didn't think he was expected he would beat a retreat at once."

At this instant, M. Charnot came back to us, having seen his two trunks
and a hatbox placed on top of the omnibus of the Hotel de France.

"That is where you have found rooms for us?"

"Yes, sir."

"It is now twelve minutes past nine; tell Monsieur Mouillard that we
shall call upon him at ten o'clock precisely."

I went a few steps with them, and saw them into the omnibus, which was
whirled off at a fast trot by its two steeds.

When I had lost them from my sight I cast a look around me, and noticed
three people standing in line beneath the awning, and gazing upon me
with interest. I recognized Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle Lorinet.
They were all smiling with the same look of contemptuous mockery.
I bowed. The man alone returned my salute, raising his hat. By some
strange freak of fate, Berthe was again wearing a blue dress.

I went back in the direction of the Rue du Four, happy, though at
my wits' end, forming projects that were mutually destructive; now
expatiating in the seventh heaven, now loading myself with the most
appalling curses. I slipped along the streets, concealed beneath my
umbrella, for the rain was falling; a great storm-cloud had burst over
Bourges, and I blessed the rain which gave me a chance to hide my face.

From the banks of the Voizelle to the old quarter around the cathedral
is a rather long walk. When I turned from the Rue Moyenne, the Boulevard
des Italiens of Bo