ing souls. But
that tall woman must go to bed in day, and rise to meet the first wind of
the morning, and perhaps never have known the sweet poison of the night.
I sank back into my chair....

There was a sharp, decisive sound of a key in the lock of the
entrance-door. I jumped up, fully awake, with beating heart and blushing
face. Someone was invading the flat. Someone would catch me there.

Of course it was his servant. I had entirely forgotten her.

We met in the little passage. She was a stout creature and appeared to
fill the flat. She did not seem very surprised at the sight of me, and
she eyed me with the frigid disdain of one who conforms to a certain code
for one who does not conform to it. She sat in judgment on my well-hung
skirt and the rings on my fingers and the wickedness in my breast, and
condemned me to everlasting obloquy.

'Madame is going?' she asked coldly, holding open the door.

'No, madame,' I said. 'Are you the _femme de menage_ of monsieur?'

'Yes, madame.'

'Monsieur is ill,' I said, deciding swiftly what to do. 'He does not wish
to be disturbed. He would like you to return at two o'clock.'

Long before two I should have departed.

'Monsieur knows well that I have another _menage_ from twelve to two,'
protested the woman.

'Three o'clock, then,' I said.

_Bien_, madame,' said she, and, producing the contents of a reticule:
'Here are the bread, the butter, the milk, and the newspaper, madame.'

'Thank you, madame.'

I took the things, and she left, and I shut the door and bolted it.

In anticipation, the circumstances of such an encounter would have caused
me infinite trouble of spirit. 'But after all it was not so very
dreadful,' I thought, as I fastened the door. 'Do I care for his _femme
de menage_?'

The great door of the house would be open now, and the stairs no longer
affrighting, and I might slip unobserved away. But I could not bring
myself to leave until I had spoken with Diaz, and I would not wake him.
It was nearly noon when he stirred. I heard his movements, and a slight
moaning sigh, and he called me.

'Are you there, Magda?'

How feeble and appealing his voice!

For answer I stepped into his bedroom.

The eye that has learned to look life full in the face without a quiver
of the lid should find nothing repulsive. Everything that is is the
ordered and calculable result of environment. Nothing can be abhorrent,
nothing blameworthy, nothing contrary to nature