ith Mme. Walter. At
three successive meetings she had been a prey to remorse, and had
overwhelmed her lover with reproaches. Angered by those scenes and
already weary of the dramatic woman, he had simply avoided her, hoping
that the affair would end in that way.

But she persecuted him with her affection, summoned him at all times by
telegrams to meet her at street corners, in shops, or public gardens.
She was very different from what he had fancied she would be, trying to
attract him by actions ridiculous in one of her age. It disgusted him
to hear her call him: "My rat--my dog--my treasure--my jewel--my
blue-bird"--and to see her assume a kind of childish modesty when he
approached. It seemed to him that being the mother of a family, a woman
of the world, she should have been more sedate, and have yielded With
tears if she chose, but with the tears of a Dido and not of a Juliette.
He never heard her call him "Little one" or "Baby," without wishing to
reply "Old woman," to take his hat with an oath and leave the room.

At first they had often met at Rue de Constantinople, but Du Roy, who
feared an encounter with Mme. de Marelle, invented a thousand and one
pretexts in order to avoid that rendezvous. He was therefore obliged to
either lunch or dine at her house daily, when she would clasp his hand
under cover of the table or offer him her lips behind the doors. Above
all, Georges enjoyed being thrown so much in contact with Suzanne; she
made sport of everything and everybody with cutting appropriateness. At
length, however, he began to feel an unconquerable repugnance to the
love lavished upon him by the mother; he could no longer see her, hear
her, nor think of her without anger. He ceased calling upon her,
replying to her letters, and yielding to her appeals. She finally
divined that he no longer loved her, and the discovery caused her
unutterable anguish; but she watched him, followed him in a cab with
drawn blinds to the office, to his house, in the hope of seeing him
pass by. He would have liked to strangle her, but he controlled himself
on account of his position on "La Vie Francaise" and he endeavored by
means of coldness, and even at times harsh words, to make her
comprehend that all was at an end between them.

Then, too, she persisted in devising ruses for summoning him to Rue de
Constantinople, and he was in constant fear that the two women would
some day meet face to face at the door.

On the other hand,