every moment they became more distinct, and the prospect that they
would presently pass by me, back into the casino, gave me that physical
tension which one feels on a wayside platform at the imminent passing of
an express. In the rushingly enlarged vision I had of them, the wrath
on the woman's face was even more saliently the main thing than I had
supposed it would be. That very hard Parisian face must have been as
white as the powder that coated it. 'Coute, Ange'lique,' gasped
the perspiring bourgeois, 'ecoute, je te supplie--' The swing-door
received them and was left swinging to and fro. I wanted to follow,
but had not paid for my bock. I beckoned my waiter. On his way to me he
stooped down and picked up something which, with a smile and a shrug,
he laid on my table: 'Il semble que Mademoiselle ne s'en servira plus.'
This is the thing I now write of, and at sight of it I understood why
there had been that snapping and crackling, and what the white fragments
on the ground were.

I hurried through the rooms, hoping to see a continuation of that
drama--a scene of appeasement, perhaps, or of fury still implacable. But
the two oddly-assorted players were not performing there. My waiter
had told me he had not seen either of them before. I suppose they had
arrived that day. But I was not destined to see either of them again.
They went away, I suppose, next morning; jointly or singly; singly, I
imagine.

They made, however, a prolonged stay in my young memory, and would have
done so even had I not had that tangible memento of them. Who were they,
those two of whom that one strange glimpse had befallen me? What, I
wondered, was the previous history of each? What, in particular, had all
that tragic pother been about? Mlle. Ange'lique I guessed to be thirty
years old, her friend perhaps fifty-five. Each of their faces was as
clear to me as in the moment of actual vision--the man's fat shiny
bewildered face; the taut white face of the woman, the hard red line of
her mouth, the eyes that were not flashing, but positively dull, with
rage. I presumed that the fan had been a present from him, and a recent
present--bought perhaps that very day, after their arrival in the town.
But what, what had he done that she should break it between her hands,
scattering the splinters as who should sow dragon's teeth? I could not
believe he had done anything much amiss. I imagined her grievance a
trivial one. But this did not make the case les