boy's name which suits her very well. She lives in the rue
Babneux not vary far from the rue Littre post-office. She is a blonde,
she has a maid, she is a fervent Catholic. She's the one."

And he experienced, almost simultaneously, two absolutely distinct
sensations.

Of disappointment, first, for his unknown pleased him better. Mme.
Chantelouve would never realize the ideal he had fashioned for himself,
the tantalizing features, the agile, wild animal body, the melancholy
and ardent bearing, which he had dreamed. Indeed, the mere fact of
knowing the unknown rendered her less desirable, more vulgar.
Accessibility killed the chimera.

At the same time he experienced a lively relief. He might have been
dealing with a hideous old crone, and Hyacinthe, as he immediately began
to call her, was desirable. Thirty-three at most, not pretty, but
peculiar; blonde, slight and supple, with no hips, she seemed thin
because she was small-boned. The face, mediocre, spoiled by too big a
nose, but the lips incandescent, the teeth superb, her complexion ever
so faint a rose in the slightly bluish milk white of rice water a little
troubled.

Then her real charm, the really deceptive enigma of her, was in her
eyes; ash-grey eyes which seemed uncertain, myopic, and which conveyed
an expression of resigned boredom. At certain moments the pupils glowed
like a gem of grey water and sparks of silver twinkled to the surface.
By turns they were dolent, forsaken, languorous, and haughty. He
remembered that those eyes had often brought his heart into his throat!

In spite of circumstantial evidence, he reflected that those
impassioned letters did not correspond in any way to this woman in the
flesh. Never was woman more controlled, more adept in the lies of good
breeding. He remembered the Chantelouve at-homes. She seemed attentive,
made no contribution to the conversation, played the hostess smiling,
without animation. It was a kind of case of dual personality. In one
visible phase a society woman, prudent and reserved, in another
concealed phase a wild romantic, mad with passion, hysterical of body,
nymphomaniac of soul. It hardly seemed probable.

"No," he said, "I am on the wrong track. It's merely by chance that Mme.
Chantelouve spoke of my books to Des Hermies, and I mustn't jump to the
conclusion that she is smitten with me and that she has been writing me
these hot letters. It isn't she, but who on earth is it?"

He continued to re