to you will take some time. I am afraid--"

"Of what?" he asked.

"I don't know. You are in a hurry? I interfere with you, perhaps!"

"Not the least in the world. I breakfast at the Club, take a turn in the
Bois, and drop in at the _Mirlitons_ to see the opening. You see that I
should be entitled to very little merit in sacrificing to you a
perfectly wasted day."

"Is the present Exposition of the _Mirlitons_ well spoken of?" asked
Marianne, indifferently.

"Very. It is a collection of things that are to be sold for the benefit
of a deceased artist. Would you like to go there at four o'clock?"

"No, thanks!--And I repeat, my dear Guy, that I will not hinder you, you
know, if I have been indiscreet in giving you an appointment!--"

She seemed to be mechanically toying with the silk rosettes in the
little vase; she picked them up and let them drop from her fingers like
grains.

"These are yours?" she asked.--"Come near that I may put them on!"

She went to Guy, smilingly, and resting her body against his for its
entire length, she paused for a moment while she held the lapel of his
jacket, and from head to foot she gazed at him with a look that seemed
to impregnate him with odor and turned him pale.

"What an idea, Marianne! I do not wear these ribbons now."

"A childish one. I remember that I was the first to place in this
buttonhole some foreign decoration that Monsieur de Rosas brought you--"

She pronounced this name boldly, as if she would bring on the battle.

"That suits you well," she continued. "Orders on your coat are like
diamonds in our ears--they are of no use, but they are pretty."

She had passed a red rosette through the buttonhole, and lowering his
head, Guy saw her fair brow, her blond locks within reach of his lips.
They exhaled a perfume--the odor of hay, that he liked so well--and
those woman's fingers on his breast, the fingers of the woman whom he
had mocked the previous night at the theatre, caused him a disturbing
sensation. He gently disengaged himself, while Marianne repeated: "That
suits you well--" Then her hand fell on his and she pressed his fingers
in her burning and soft palm and said, as she half lowered her head
toward him:

"Do you know why I have come? You know that I am silly. Well, naughty
one, the other evening in that box when you punished me with your irony,
all my love for you returned!--Ah! how foolish we are, we women! Tell
me, Guy, do you recall the glorious