er bewildered eyes frightened him.

She was panting and her arms hung limp at her sides as she leaned, very
pale, against the bookcase.

"Ah!" he said, marching up and down, knocking into the furniture, "I
must really love you, if in spite of your supplications and refusals--"

She joined her hands to keep him away.

"Good God!" he said, exasperated, "what are you made of?"

She came to herself, and, offended, she said to him, "Monsieur, I too
suffer. Spare me," and pell-mell she spoke of her husband, of her
confessor, and became so incoherent that Durtal was frightened. She was
silent, then in a singing voice she said, "Tell me, you will come to my
house tomorrow night, won't you?"

"But I suffer too!"

She seemed not to hear him. In her smoky eyes, far, far back, there
seemed to be a twinkle of feeble light. She murmured, in the cadence of
a canticle, "Tell me, dear, you will come tomorrow night, won't you?"

"Yes," he said at last.

Then she readjusted herself and without saying a word quitted the room.
In silence he accompanied her to the entrance. She opened the door,
turned around, took his hand and very lightly brushed it with her lips.

He stood there stupidly, not knowing what to make of her behaviour.

"What does she mean?" he exclaimed, returning to the room, putting the
furniture back in place and smoothing the disordered carpet. "Heavens, I
wish I could as easily restore order to my brain. Let me think, if I
can. What is she after? Because, of course, she has something in view.
She does not want our relation to culminate in the act itself. Does she
really fear disillusion, as she claims? Is she really thinking how
grotesque the amorous somersaults are? Or is she, as I believe, a
melancholy and terrible player-around-the-edges, thinking only of
herself? Well, her obscene selfishness is one of those complicated sins
that have to be shriven by the very highest confessor. She's a plain
teaser!

"I don't know. Incubacy enters into this. She admits--so placidly!--that
in dream she cohabits at will with dead or living beings. Is she
Satanizing, and is this some of the work of Canon Docre? He's a friend
of hers.

"So many riddles impossible to solve. What is the meaning of this
unexpected invitation for tomorrow night? Does she wish to yield nowhere
except in her own home? Does she feel more at ease there, or does she
think the propinquity of her husband will render the sin more piquant?
Does she lo