ity. He looked so droll with
his wild sweeping gestures, and she felt so conscious of his shyness
that she began to smile, and bravely held out the bunch of roses.

'Look here; I wished to show you that I am not ungrateful.'

At first he said nothing, but stood staring at her, thunderstruck. When
he saw, though, that she was not making fun of him, he shook both her
hands, with almost sufficient energy to dislocate them. Then he at once
put the flowers in his water-jug, repeating:

'Ah! now you are a good fellow, you really are. This is the first time I
pay that compliment to a woman, honour bright.'

He came back to her, and, looking straight into her eyes, he asked:

'Then you have not altogether forgotten me?'

'You see that I have not,' she replied, laughing.

'Why, then, did you wait two months before coming to see me?'

Again she blushed. The falsehood she was about to tell revived her
embarrassment for a moment.

'But you know that I am not my own mistress,' she said. 'Oh, Madame
Vanzade is very kind to me, only she is a great invalid, and never
leaves the house. But she grew anxious as to my health and compelled me
to go out to breathe a little fresh air.'

She did not allude to the shame which she had felt during the first
few days after her adventure on the Quai de Bourbon. Finding herself in
safety, beneath the old lady's roof, the recollection of the night she
had spent in Claude's room had filled her with remorse; but she fancied
at last that she had succeeded in dismissing the matter from her mind.
It was no longer anything but a bad dream, which grew more indistinct
each day. Then, how it was she could not tell, but amidst the profound
quietude of her existence, the image of that young man who had
befriended her had returned to her once more, becoming more and more
precise, till at last it occupied her daily thoughts. Why should she
forget him? She had nothing to reproach him with; on the contrary, she
felt she was his debtor. The thought of seeing him again, dismissed
at first, struggled against later on, at last became an all-absorbing
craving. Each evening the temptation to go and see him came strong upon
her in the solitude of her own room. She experienced an uncomfortable
irritating feeling, a vague desire which she could not define, and only
calmed down somewhat on ascribing this troubled state of mind to a wish
to evince her gratitude. She was so utterly alone, she felt so stifled
in that