aven't what you would call the physique of a lady's
man," he concluded. "What does she see in me? for she could very easily
find someone else with whom to be unfaithful to her husband. Enough of
these rambling thoughts. Let's cease to think them. To sum up the
situation: I love her with my head and not my heart. That's the
important thing. Under such conditions, whatever happens, a love affair
is brief, and I am almost certain to get out of it without committing
any follies."

CHAPTER IX

The next morning he woke, thinking of her, just as he had been doing
when he went to sleep. He tried to rationalize the episode and revolved
his conjectures over and over. Once again he put himself this question:
"Why, when I went to her house, did she not let me see that I pleased
her? Never a look, never a word to encourage me. Why this
correspondence, when it was so easy to insist on having me to dine, so
simple to prepare an occasion which would bring us together, either at
her home or elsewhere?" And he answered himself, "It would have been
usual and not at all diverting. She is perhaps skilled in these matters.
She knows that the unknown frightens a man's reason away, that the
unembodied puts the soul in ferment, and she wished to give me a fever
before trying an attack--to call her advances by their right name.

"It must be admitted that if my conjectures are correct she is strangely
astute. At heart she is, perhaps, quite simply a crazy romantic or a
comedian. It amuses her to manufacture little adventures, to throw
tantalizing obstacles in the way of the realization of a vulgar desire.
And Chantelouve? He is probably aware of his wife's goings on, which
perhaps facilitate his career. Otherwise, how could she arrange to come
here at nine o'clock at night, instead of the morning or afternoon on
pretence of going shopping?"

To this new question there could be no answer, and little by little he
ceased to interrogate himself on the point. He began to be obsessed by
the real woman as he had been by the imaginary creature. The latter had
completely vanished. He did not even remember her physiognomy now. Mme.
Chantelouve, just as she was in reality, without borrowing the other's
features, had complete possession of him and fired his brain and senses
to white heat. He began to desire her madly and to wish furiously for
tomorrow night. And if she did not come? He felt cold in the small of
his back at the idea that she might