do not imagine, perhaps," she
said, "that I have forgiven you for your flight and all that followed
it?--If, for a moment, I almost stumbled in the mire, the fault was
yours, for I loved you and you abandoned me, as a man forsakes a
strumpet.--So, you see, my dear, a woman never forgets it, and I would
have cried out long before, if I had felt myself free, free as I am now
that those letters are burned, the poor letters of a stupid mistress,
confiding in her lover who is overcome with weariness, and who is only
thinking of deserting her, while she is still intoxicated in yielding to
him--and because I adored you--yes, truly--because I was your mistress,
do you arrogate to yourself the right of preventing me from marrying as
I wish, and of drawing myself out of the bog into which, perhaps, by
your selfishness, I have fallen? Ah, my dear fellow, really I am
somewhat surprised at you, I swear!--I said nothing because of those
scraps of paper, that you would have been cowardly enough, I assert, to
show Rosas and every line of which told how foolish I had been to love
you."

"Monsieur de Rosas would never have seen them!" said Lissac severely.

She did not seem to hear him.

"But now, what? Thank God," she continued, "there is nothing, and you
have delivered those letters to me that you ought never to have
returned. And I have paid you for them, paid for them with new caresses
and a last prostitution! Well! that ends it, doesn't it? There is
nothing more between us, nothing, nothing, nothing!--And these two
beings, who exchanged here their loveless kisses, the kisses of a
debauchee and a courtesan, will never recognize each other again, I
hope--you hear, never recognize each other again--when they meet in
life. Moreover, I will take care to avoid meetings!"

Guy said nothing.

He twirled his moustache slightly and continued to look at Marianne
sideways without replying.

This indifference, though doubtless assumed, nevertheless annoyed the
young woman.

"Go, find Monsieur de Rosas now!" she said. "Tell him that you have been
my lover, he will not believe you."

"I am satisfied of that," Lissac replied very calmly.

She realized a threat in his very calmness. But what had she to fear
now?

She fastened her ironical glance on Lissac, the better to defy him, and
to enjoy his defeat.

With extended hands, he noiselessly tapped his fingers together, the
gesture of a person who waits, sure of himself and displaying