attention the
two halves of the almost impenetrable vapor slowly disappear.

Duroy, with his eyes, followed all her gestures, her attitudes, the
movements of her form and features--busied with this vague pastime which
did not preoccupy her thoughts.

She now imagined the incidents of the journey, sketched traveling
companions invented by herself, and a love affair with the wife of a
captain of infantry on her way to join her husband.

Then, sitting down again, she questioned Duroy on the topography of
Algeria, of which she was absolutely ignorant. In ten minutes she knew
as much about it as he did, and she dictated a little chapter of
political and colonial geography to coach the reader up in such matters
and prepare him to understand the serious questions which were to be
brought forward in the following articles. She continued by a trip into
the provinces of Oran, a fantastic trip, in which it was, above all, a
question of women, Moorish, Jewish, and Spanish.

"That is what interests most," she said.

She wound up by a sojourn at Saida, at the foot of the great tablelands;
and by a pretty little intrigue between the sub-officer, George Duroy,
and a Spanish work-girl employed at the _alfa_ factory at Ain el Hadjar.
She described their rendezvous at night amidst the bare, stony hills,
with jackals, hyenas, and Arab dogs yelling, barking and howling among
the rocks.

And she gleefully uttered the words: "To be continued." Then rising, she
added: "That is how one writes an article, my dear sir. Sign it, if you
please."

He hesitated.

"But sign it, I tell you."

Then he began to laugh, and wrote at the bottom of the page, "George
Duroy."

She went on smoking as she walked up and down; and he still kept looking
at her, unable to find anything to say to thank her, happy to be with
her, filled with gratitude, and with the sensual pleasure of this
new-born intimacy. It seemed to him that everything surrounding him was
part of her, everything down to the walls covered with books. The
chairs, the furniture, the air in which the perfume of tobacco was
floating, had something special, nice, sweet, and charming, which
emanated from her.

Suddenly she asked: "What do you think of my friend, Madame de Marelle?"

He was surprised, and answered: "I think--I think--her very charming."

"Is it not so?"

"Yes, certainly."

He longed to add: "But not so much as yourself," but dared not.

She resumed: "And if you only