the time Dominic displayed an unwonted jocularity of a dry and biting
kind with which, he maintained, he had been infected by no other person
than myself. As, with all his force of character, he was very responsive
to the moods of those he liked I have no doubt he spoke the truth. But I
know nothing about it. The observer, more or less alert, whom each of us
carries in his own consciousness, failed me altogether, had turned away
his face in sheer horror, or else had fainted from the strain. And thus
I had to live alone, unobserved even by myself.

But the trip had been successful. We re-entered the harbour very quietly
as usual and when our craft had been moored unostentatiously amongst the
plebeian stone-carriers, Dominic, whose grim joviality had subsided in
the last twenty-four hours of our homeward run, abandoned me to myself as
though indeed I had been a doomed man. He only stuck his head for a
moment into our little cuddy where I was changing my clothes and being
told in answer to his question that I had no special orders to give went
ashore without waiting for me.

Generally we used to step on the quay together and I never failed to
enter for a moment Madame Leonore's cafe. But this time when I got on
the quay Dominic was nowhere to be seen. What was it?
Abandonment--discretion--or had he quarrelled with his Leonore before
leaving on the trip?

My way led me past the cafe and through the glass panes I saw that he was
already there. On the other side of the little marble table Madame
Leonore, leaning with mature grace on her elbow, was listening to him
absorbed. Then I passed on and--what would you have!--I ended by making
my way into the street of the Consuls. I had nowhere else to go. There
were my things in the apartment on the first floor. I couldn't bear the
thought of meeting anybody I knew.

The feeble gas flame in the hall was still there, on duty, as though it
had never been turned off since I last crossed the hall at half-past
eleven in the evening to go to the harbour. The small flame had watched
me letting myself out; and now, exactly of the same size, the poor little
tongue of light (there was something wrong with that burner) watched me
letting myself in, as indeed it had done many times before. Generally
the impression was that of entering an untenanted house, but this time
before I could reach the foot of the stairs Therese glided out of the
passage leading into the studio. Afte