ompliments.

Mademoiselle Francesca ate like an ogre, and as soon as she had finished
her meal she threw herself upon the sofa. As for me, I saw the decisive
moment approaching for settling how we were to apportion the rooms. I
determined to take the bull by the horns, and sitting down by the
Italian I said gallantly, kissing her hand:

"As we have only two bedrooms, will you allow me to share yours with
you?"

"Do just as you like," she said. "It is all the same to me. _Che mi
fa_?"

Her indifference vexed me.

"But you are sure you do not mind my being in your room with you?" I
said.

"It is all the same to me; do just as you like."

"Should you like to go to bed at once?"

"Yes; I am very sleepy."

She got up, yawned, gave Paul her hand, who took it with a furious look,
and I lighted her into our room. A disquieting feeling haunted me. "Here
is all you want," I said again.

This time I took care to pour half the water into the basin, and to put
a towel near the soap.

Then I went back to Paul. As soon as I got into the room, he said, "You
have got a nice sort of camel there!" and I answered, laughing. "My
dear friend, don't speak ill of sour grapes," and he replied,
ill-temperedly:

"Just take care how this ends, my good fellow."

I almost trembled with that feeling of fear which assails us after some
suspicious love escapade--that fear which spoils our pleasant meetings,
our unexpected caresses, our chance kisses. However, I put a bold face
on the matter. "At any rate, the girl is no adventuress."

But the fellow had me in his power; he had seen the shadow of my anxiety
on my face.

"What do you know about her? You really astonish me. You pick up an
Italian woman traveling alone by railway, and she volunteers, with most
singular cynicism, to go and to be your mistress in the first hotel you
come to. You take her with you, and then you declare that she is not
a----! And you persuade yourself that you are not running more risk than
if you were to go and spend the night with a woman who had the
small-pox."

He laughed with an unpleasant and angry laugh. I sat down, a prey to
uneasiness. What was I to do, for he was right after all? And a struggle
began within me, between desire and fear.

He went on: "Do as you like, I have warned you, so, do not complain of
the consequences."

But I saw an ironical gayety in his eyes, such a delight in his revenge,
and he made fun of me so jovially that I did