t
and ought not to interest you at all."

"You mistake my meaning. I am entirely at your service; only I regret
my inability to calm your distress. If my society and that of my friends
can give you any distraction, if, in short, you have need of me, no
matter in what way, I hope you will realize how much pleasure it will
give me to do anything for you."

"Pardon, pardon," said he; "sorrow sharpens the sensations. Let me stay
here for a few minutes longer, long enough to dry my eyes, so that the
idlers in the street may not look upon it as a curiosity to see a big
fellow like me crying. You have made me very happy by giving me this
book. I do not know how I can ever express my gratitude to you."

"By giving me a little of your friendship," said I, "and by telling me
the cause of your suffering. One feels better while telling what one
suffers."

"You are right. But to-day I have too much need of tears; I can not very
well talk. One day I will tell you the whole story, and you will see if
I have reason for regretting the poor girl. And now," he added, rubbing
his eyes for the last time, and looking at himself in the glass, "say
that you do not think me too absolutely idiotic, and allow me to come
back and see you another time."

He cast on me a gentle and amiable look. I was near embracing him.
As for him, his eyes again began to fill with tears; he saw that I
perceived it and turned away his head.

"Come," I said, "courage."

"Good-bye," he said.

And, making a desperate effort to restrain his tears, he rushed rather
than went out of the room.

I lifted the curtain of my window, and saw him get into the cabriolet
which awaited him at the door; but scarcely was he seated before he
burst into tears and hid his face in his pocket-handkerchief.

Chapter 5

A good while elapsed before I heard anything more of Armand, but, on the
other hand, I was constantly hearing of Marguerite.

I do not know if you have noticed, if once the name of anybody who might
in the natural course of things have always remained unknown, or at all
events indifferent to you, should be mentioned before you, immediately
details begin to group themselves about the name, and you find all your
friends talking to you about something which they have never mentioned
to you before. You discover that this person was almost touching you and
has passed close to you many times in your life without your noticing
it; you find coincidences in the e