ing servants, listening
at doors, seemed to him, now, to be precisely on a level with the
deciphering of manuscripts, the weighing of evidence, the interpretation
of old monuments, that was to say, so many different methods of
scientific investigation, each one having a definite intellectual value
and being legitimately employable in the search for truth.

As his hand stole out towards the shutters he felt a pang of shame at
the thought that Odette would now know that he had suspected her, that
he had returned, that he had posted himself outside her window. She
had often told him what a horror she had of jealous men, of lovers who
spied. What he was going to do would be extremely awkward, and she would
detest him for ever after, whereas now, for the moment, for so long as
he refrained from knocking, perhaps even in the act of infidelity, she
loved him still. How often is not the prospect of future happiness
thus sacrificed to one's impatient insistence upon an immediate
gratification. But his desire to know the truth was stronger, and seemed
to him nobler than his desire for her. He knew that the true story
of certain events, which he would have given his life to be able to
reconstruct accurately and in full, was to be read within that window,
streaked with bars of light, as within the illuminated, golden boards of
one of those precious manuscripts, by whose wealth of artistic treasures
the scholar who consults them cannot remain unmoved. He yearned for
the satisfaction of knowing the truth which so impassioned him in that
brief, fleeting, precious transcript, on that translucent page, so warm,
so beautiful. And besides, the advantage which he felt--which he so
desperately wanted to feel--that he had over them, lay perhaps not so
much in knowing as in being able to shew them that he knew. He drew
himself up on tiptoe. He knocked. They had not heard; he knocked again;
louder; their conversation ceased. A man's voice--he strained his ears
to distinguish whose, among such of Odette's friends as he knew, the
voice could be--asked:

"Who's that?"

He could not be certain of the voice. He knocked once again. The window
first, then the shutters were thrown open. It was too late, now, to
retire, and since she must know all, so as not to seem too contemptible,
too jealous and inquisitive, he called out in a careless, hearty,
welcoming tone:

"Please don't bother; I just happened to be passing, and saw the light.
I wanted to