t him a thought less piquant, and more
harsh. She did not wish to see him soon. He had become to her almost
a stranger. He seemed to her a man like others--better than most
others--good-looking, estimable, and who did not displease her; but he
did not preoccupy her. Suddenly he had gone out of her life. She could
not remember how he had become mingled with it. The idea of belonging
to him shocked her. The thought that they might meet again in the small
apartment of the Rue Spontini was so painful to her that she discarded
it at once. She preferred to think that an unforeseen event would
prevent their meeting again--the end of the world, for example. M.
Lagrange, member of the Academie des Sciences, had told her the day
before of a comet which some day might meet the earth, envelop it with
its flaming hair, imbue animals and plants with unknown poisons, and
make all men die in a frenzy of laughter. She expected that this, or
something else, would happen next month. It was not inexplicable that
she wished to go. But that her desire to go should contain a vague joy,
that she should feel the charm of what she was to find, was inexplicable
to her.

Her carriage left her at the corner of a street.

There, under the roof of a tall house, behind five windows, in a small,
neat apartment, Madame Marmet had lived since the death of her husband.

Countess Martin found her in her modest drawing-room, opposite M.
Lagrange, half asleep in a deep armchair. This worldly old savant had
remained ever faithful to her. He it was who, the day after M. Marmet's
funeral, had conveyed to the unfortunate widow the poisoned speech
delivered by Schmoll. She had fainted in his arms. Madame Marmet thought
that he lacked judgment, but he was her best friend. They dined together
often with rich friends.

Madame Martin, slender and erect in her zibeline corsage opening on a
flood of lace, awakened with the charming brightness of her gray eyes
the good man, who was susceptible to the graces of women. He had told
her the day before how the world would come to an end. He asked her
whether she had not been frightened at night by pictures of the earth
devoured by flames or frozen to a mass of ice. While he talked to her
with affected gallantry, she looked at the mahogany bookcase. There were
not many books in it, but on one of the shelves was a skeleton in armor.
It amazed one to see in this good lady's house that Etruscan warrior
wearing a green bronze