udied all the faces, trying to identify those
two beings.

But I questioned pairs of faces in vain. I made efforts to detect
resemblances. There was nothing to guide me. I knew them no more than
if they had been buried in the dark night outside.

There were five girls or young women in the dining-room. One of them,
at least, must have been an occupant of the Room that night. But a
stronger will than mine shut off her countenance. I did not know, and
I was overwhelmed by the nothingness of what I saw.

They left, one at a time. I did not know. My hands twitched in the
infinity of uncertainty, and my fingers pressed the void. My face was
there, my face, which was a definite thing, confronting everything
possible, everything indefinite.

. . . . .

The lady there! I recognised Amy. She was talking to the landlady
beside the window. I did not notice her at first, because of the other
boarders between us.

She was eating grapes, daintily, with a rather studied manner.

I turned towards her. Her name was Madame Montgeron or Montgerot. It
sounded funny to me. Why did she have that name? It seemed not to
suit her, or to be useless. It struck me how artificial words and
signs are.

The meal was over. Almost everybody had gone out. Coffee cups and
sticky little liqueur glasses were scattered on the table on which a
sunbeam shone, mottling the tablecloth and making the glasses sparkle.
A coffee stain had dried on the cloth and gave out fragrance.

I joined in the conversation between Amy and Madame Lemercier. She
looked at me. I scarcely recognised her look, which I had seen so
clearly before.

The man-servant came in and whispered a few words to Madame Lemercier.
She rose, excused herself, and went out of the room. I was left with
Amy. There were only two or three people in the dining-room, who were
discussing what they were going to do in the afternoon.

I did not know what to say to her. The conversation flagged and died
out. She must have thought that she did not interest me--this woman,
whose heart I had seen, and whose destiny I knew as well as God
Himself.

She reached for a newspaper lying on the table, read a line or two,
then folded it, rose and also left the room.

Sickened by the commonplaceness of life and dull from the heaviness of
the after-lunch hour, I leaned drowsily on the long, long table, the
sunlit table disappearing into infinity, and I made an effort to keep
my arm