u are going to answer me--oh, I know it--that you
don't know me, that Mlle. Martha doesn't know me. Allow me to tell you
that Mlle. Martha and myself know each other better than three-fourths
of engaged couples on the day of their marriage. You know how it is
usually done. A rapid glance from afar in a theatre--one brings good
lorgnettes, one examines. 'How do you like him?' 'Fairly, fairly.'
Then, several days later, at a ball, in the midst of the figures of the
quadrille, several gasping, breathless phrases are exchanged. Then a
meeting in a picture-gallery. There, there is more intimacy, because it
takes place in a small room. It happened to me with a young provincial.
I had pegged away that morning at the Joanne guide, so as to be able to
find something to say about the Raphaels and the Murillos. And at the
end of several interviews of that sort it is over, one has made
acquaintance, one suits the other, and the marriage is decided. Mlle.
Martha and I are already old comrades. In the first place, to begin
with, this morning at half-past eleven she fell into my arms."

"My daughter in your arms!"

"Don't jump, madam; Mlle. Martha will see you jump."

Martha had, in fact, closely followed the scene with half-shut eyes, and
said to herself, "Good gracious! what is he telling mamma? She is
obliged to hold on to the arms of her seat to keep herself from jumping
up."

"Yes, madam, in my arms; by the greatest, by the most fortunate of
accidents, we stumbled over each other on one of the platforms of the
train. And since I have seen her, not in the false light of a theatre
or a gallery, but in the full glare of sunlight. I have seen her at
lunch, munching nuts with the prettiest teeth there are in the world; I
have seen her, just now, in the moonlight; and I know that she skates,
and I know that she swims, and I know she would like to have a
pearl-gray coupe, and she ought to have it. And now I admire her in the
semi-obscurity. Ravishing! isn't she ravishing?"

"Sir, never has a mother found herself--"

"In such a situation? I acknowledge it, madam, and for that very reason
you must get out of the situation quickly; it's evident that it can't be
prolonged."

"That's true--"

"Here is what I propose to you. You go to the Hotel de Noailles; I, too,
naturally. You have all the morning to-morrow to talk to Mlle. Martha,
and the telephone to talk through to M. Derame. You know who I am. You
have seen me, too, in the da