ails what I do. I have long wished for a young lover,
who should be young and not self-willed, loving without distrust, loved
without claiming the right to it. I have never found one. Men, instead
of being satisfied in obtaining for a long time what they scarcely
hoped to obtain once, exact from their mistresses a full account of the
present, the past, and even the future. As they get accustomed to her,
they want to rule her, and the more one gives them the more exacting
they become. If I decide now on taking a new lover, he must have three
very rare qualities: he must be confiding, submissive, and discreet."

"Well, I will be all that you wish."

"We shall see."

"When shall we see?"

"Later on."

"Why?"

"Because," said Marguerite, releasing herself from my arms, and, taking
from a great bunch of red camellias a single camellia, she placed it in
my buttonhole, "because one can not always carry out agreements the day
they are signed."

"And when shall I see you again?" I said, clasping her in my arms.

"When this camellia changes colour."

"When will it change colour?"

"To-morrow night between eleven and twelve. Are you satisfied?"

"Need you ask me?"

"Not a word of this either to your friend or to Prudence, or to anybody
whatever."

"I promise."

"Now, kiss me, and we will go back to the dining-room."

She held up her lips to me, smoothed her hair again, and we went out of
the room, she singing, and I almost beside myself.

In the next room she stopped for a moment and said to me in a low voice:

"It must seem strange to you that I am ready to take you at a moment's
notice. Shall I tell you why? It is," she continued, taking my hand
and placing it against her heart so that I could feel how rapidly and
violently it palpitated; "it is because I shall not live as long as
others, and I have promised myself to live more quickly."

"Don't speak to me like that, I entreat you."

"Oh, make yourself easy," she continued, laughing; "however short a time
I have to live, I shall live longer than you will love me!"

And she went singing into the dining-room.

"Where is Nanine?" she said, seeing Gaston and Prudence alone.

"She is asleep in your room, waiting till you are ready to go to bed,"
replied Prudence.

"Poor thing, I am killing her! And now gentlemen, it is time to go."

Ten minutes after, Gaston and I left the house. Marguerite shook hands
with me and said good-bye. Prudence remained behin