ught to love you naively, without
that sort of metaphysics which is passional and makes me absurd and
wicked. There is nothing good except to ignore and to forget. Come, come,
I have thought of you too cruelly in the tortures of your absence; come,
my beloved! I must forget you with you. It is with you only that I can
forget you and lose myself."

He took her in his arms and, lifting her veil, kissed her on the lips.

A little frightened in that vast, unknown hall, embarrassed by the look
of strange things, she drew the black tulle to her chin.

"Here! You can not think of it."

He said they were alone.

"Alone? And the man with terrible moustaches who opened the door?"

He smiled:

"That is Fusellier, my father's former servant. He and his wife take
charge of the house. Do not be afraid. They remain in their box. You
shall see Madame Fusellier; she is inclined to familiarity. I warn you."

"My friend, why has Monsieur Fusellier, a janitor, moustaches like a
Tartar?"

"My dear, nature gave them to him. I am not sorry that he has the air of
a sergeant-major and gives me the illusion of being a country neighbor."

Seated on the corner of the divan, he drew her to his knees and gave to
her kisses which she returned.

She rose quickly.

"Show me the other rooms. I am curious. I wish to see everything."

He escorted her to the second story. Aquarelles by Philippe Dechartre
covered the walls of the corridor. He opened the door and made her enter
a room furnished with white mahogany:

It was his mother's room. He kept it intact in its past. Uninhabited for
nine years, the, room had not the air of being resigned to its solitude.
The mirror waited for the old lady's glance, and on the onyx clock a
pensive Sappho was lonely because she did not hear the noise of the
pendulum.

There were two portraits on the walls. One by Ricard represented Philippe
Dechartre, very pale, with rumpled hair, and eyes lost in a romantic
dream. The other showed a middle-aged woman, almost beautiful in her
ardent slightness. It was Madame Philippe Dechartre.

"My poor mother's room is like me," said Jacques; "it remembers."

"You resemble your mother," said Therese; "you have her eyes. Paul Vence
told me she adored you."

"Yes," he replied, smilingly. "My mother was excellent, intelligent,
exquisite, marvellously absurd. Her madness was maternal love. She did
not give me a moment of rest. She tormented herself and tormented me."