ell you all this
in order to explain a somewhat irregular invitation. You understand, do
you not, that I want you to make one of us on Saturday at the Cafe
Riche, at half-past seven. You know the place?"

He accepted with pleasure, and she went on: "There will be only us four.
These little outings are very amusing to us women who are not accustomed
to them."

She was wearing a dark brown dress, which showed off the lines of her
waist, her hips, her bosom, and her arm in a coquettishly provocative
way. Duroy felt confusedly astonished at the lack of harmony between
this carefully refined elegance and her evident carelessness as regarded
her dwelling. All that clothed her body, all that closely and directly
touched her flesh was fine and delicate, but that which surrounded her
did not matter to her.

He left her, retaining, as before, the sense of her continued presence
in species of hallucination of the senses. And he awaited the day of the
dinner with growing impatience.

Having hired, for the second time, a dress suit--his funds not yet
allowing him to buy one--he arrived first at the rendezvous, a few
minutes before the time. He was ushered up to the second story, and into
a small private dining-room hung with red and white, its single window
opening into the boulevard. A square table, laid for four, displaying
its white cloth, so shining that it seemed to be varnished, and the
glasses and the silver glittered brightly in the light of the twelve
candles of two tall candelabra. Without was a broad patch of light
green, due to the leaves of a tree lit up by the bright light from the
dining-rooms.

Duroy sat down in a low armchair, upholstered in red to match the
hangings on the walls. The worn springs yielding beneath him caused him
to feel as though sinking into a hole. He heard throughout the huge
house a confused murmur, the murmur of a large restaurant, made up of
the clattering of glass and silver, the hurried steps of the waiters,
deadened by the carpets in the passages, and the opening of doors
letting out the sound of voices from the numerous private rooms in which
people were dining. Forestier came in and shook hands with him, with a
cordial familiarity which he never displayed at the offices of the _Vie
Francaise_.

"The ladies are coming together," said he; "these little dinners are
very pleasant."

Then he glanced at the table, turned a gas jet that was feebly burning
completely off, closed one sas