th had the same
expression of silent sorrow. Alas, how well I knew every line and
feature of this kindly countenance, the soft cheeks, the great eyes,
which were not fortunate when they looked upon me--and how far away
that all lay! I could not go furtively by; little strength though I
had, I stopped. Then she raised her gravely animate, dark eyes and
gazed at me with the glance of a stranger; she did not recognize me,
and passed on undisturbed. I groaned aloud and watched her as she went,
shook my head in resignation to a power greater than I, and reeled
along the way I was going.

But I did not reflect on this incomprehensible meeting; like the
meeting with Mariandel, it was immediately blotted out of my
consciousness, and I asked myself after Mara. Where was she? Where was
she seeking me! What is she likely to be doing? I ran every which way
and, seeking to escape her, I hoped to find her.

At last I felt fatigued and wanted a resting place, where in the
stillness I could dream of her and, after the pitiful confusion of this
foregathering, could try to understand her and myself. I turned again
toward the main street; I knew of a great restaurant there, in which
there was a quiet palm room with marble walls and a fountain.

When I arrived in front of the building a gray-veiled figure was
crouching on the steps. I stopped in dismay. With her hat pushed back
behind her shoulders, she sat cowering forward. Her head, covered by
her gray cloak, rested upon her right arm bent at the elbow; her right
hand clasped the back of her neck and gleamed forth incredibly white
and fine from under the dull folds and wrinkles of her garment; her
left hand she stretched toward me beneath her right arm, in
supplication. A beggar, it seemed, had collapsed here exhausted, and
even in sleep did not forget her necessity. I stood still and thought:
"Take her in your arms! Carry her away!" But that was not what her hand
wanted.

"Do you beg for my heart?" I whispered to her. "I can put my heart into
your heart, but not into your hand!" I hurried past her into the palm
room and seated myself in the darkest corner.

Mara did not follow me.

I ordered a sherbet. But for the same reason that the restless running
about in the noon-day glow had not heated me, the cool of the marble
walls now made me shiver, and the sherbet gave me such an icy thrill
that I hardly touched it. Nevertheless, I did not dare to go out again.
I could not another t