the young man, as he fumbled in his pocket for his key.
At last, however, he opened the door.

'Don't come in, but wait, else you'll hurt yourself again.'

She did not stir. She was panting for breath, her heart was beating
fast, there was a buzzing in her ears, and she felt indeed exhausted
by that ascent in the dense gloom. It seemed to her as if she had been
climbing for hours, in such a maze, amidst such a turning and twisting
of stairs that she would never be able to find her way down again.
Inside the studio there was a shuffling of heavy feet, a rustling of
hands groping in the dark, a clatter of things being tumbled about,
accompanied by stifled objurgations. At last the doorway was lighted up.

'Come in, it's all right now.'

She went in and looked around her, without distinguishing anything. The
solitary candle burned dim in that garret, more than fifteen feet high,
and filled with a confused jumble of things whose big shadows showed
fantastically on the walls, which were painted in grey distemper. No,
she did not distinguish anything. She mechanically raised her eyes
to the large studio-window, against which the rain was beating with a
deafening roll like that of a drum, but at that moment another flash
of lightning illumined the sky, followed almost immediately by a
thunder-clap that seemed to split the roof. Dumb-stricken, pale as
death, she dropped upon a chair.

'The devil!' muttered Claude, who also was rather pale. 'That clap
wasn't far off. We were just in time. It's better here than in the
streets, isn't it?'

Then he went towards the door, closed it with a bang and turned the key,
while she watched him with a dazed look.

'There, now, we are at home.'

But it was all over. There were only a few more thunder-claps in the
distance, and the rain soon ceased altogether. Claude, who was now
growing embarrassed, had examined the girl, askance. She seemed by no
means bad looking, and assuredly she was young: twenty at the most. This
scrutiny had the effect of making him more suspicious of her still,
in spite of an unconscious feeling, a vague idea, that she was not
altogether deceiving him. In any case, no matter how clever she might
be, she was mistaken if she imagined she had caught him. To prove this
he wilfully exaggerated his gruffness and curtness of manner.

Her very anguish at his words and demeanour made her rise, and in her
turn she examined him, though without daring to look him straigh