He
longed to ill-treat her, swear at her, strike her, say to her plainly,
"I have had enough of it, you worry my life out." But he observed some
circumspection on account of the _Vie Francaise_, and strove by dint of
coolness, harshness, tempered by attention, and even rude words at
times, to make her understand that there must be an end to it. She
strove, above all, to devise schemes to allure him to a meeting in the
Rue de Constantinople, and he was in a perpetual state of alarm lest the
two women should find themselves some day face to face at the door.

His affection for Madame de Marelle had, on the contrary, augmented
during the summer. He called her his "young rascal," and she certainly
charmed him. Their two natures had kindred links; they were both members
of the adventurous race of vagabonds, those vagabonds in society who so
strongly resemble, without being aware of it, the vagabonds of the
highways. They had had a summer of delightful love-making, a summer of
students on the spree, bolting off to lunch or dine at Argenteuil,
Bougival, Maisons, or Poissy, and passing hours in a boat gathering
flowers from the bank. She adored the fried fish served on the banks of
the Seine, the stewed rabbits, the arbors in the tavern gardens, and the
shouts of the boating men. He liked to start off with her on a bright
day on a suburban line, and traverse the ugly environs of Paris,
sprouting with tradesmen's hideous boxes, talking lively nonsense. And
when he had to return to dine at Madame Walter's he hated the eager old
mistress from the mere recollection of the young one whom he had left,
and who had ravished his desires and harvested his ardor among the grass
by the water side.

He had fancied himself at length pretty well rid of Madame Walter, to
whom he had expressed, in a plain and almost brutal fashion, his
intentions of breaking off with her, when he received at the office of
the paper the telegram summoning him to meet her at two o'clock at the
Rue de Constantinople. He re-read it as he walked along, "Must see you
to-day. Most important. Expect me two o'clock, Rue de Constantinople.
Can render you a great service. Till death.--Virginie."

He thought, "What does this old screech-owl want with me now? I wager
she has nothing to tell me. She will only repeat that she adores me. Yet
I must see what it means. She speaks of an important affair and a great
service; perhaps it is so. And Clotilde, who is coming at four