'Do I know who my child's father is?' she demanded. 'My child has
thirty-six fathers!'

'You seem very bitter,' I said, 'for your age. You are much younger
than I am.'

She smiled and shook her honey-coloured hair, and toyed with the ribbons
of her _peignoir_.

'What I say is true,' she said gently. 'But, there, what would you have?
We hate them, but we love them. They are beasts! beasts! but we cannot do
without them!'

Her eyes rested on Diaz for a moment. He slept without the least sound,
the stricken and futile witness of our confidences.

'You will take him away from Paris soon, perhaps?' she asked.

'If I can,' I said.

There was a sound of light footsteps on the stair. They stopped at the
door, which I remembered we had not shut. I jumped up and went into the
passage. Another girl stood in the doorway, in a _peignoir_ the exact
counterpart of my first visitor's, but rose-coloured. And this one, too,
was languorous and had honey-coloured locks. It was as though the
mysterious house was full of such creatures, each with her secret lair.

'Pardon, madame,' said my visitor, following and passing me; and then to
the newcomer: 'What is it, Alice?'

'It is Monsieur Duchatel who is arrived.'

'Oh!' with a disdainful gesture. '_Je m'en fiche._ Let him go.'

'But it is the nephew, my dear; not the uncle.'

'Ah, the nephew! I come. _Bon soir, madams, et bonne nuit_.'

The two _peignoirs_ fluttered down the stairs together. I returned to my
Diaz, and seeing his dressing-gown behind the door of the bedroom, I took
it and covered him with it.

IV

His first words were:

'Magda, you look like a ghost. Have you been sitting there like that all
the time?'

'No,' I said; 'I lay down.'

'Where?'

'By your side.'

'What time is it?'

'Tea-time. The water is boiling.

'Was I dreadful last night?'

'Dreadful? How?'

'I have a sort of recollection of getting angry and stamping about. I
didn't do anything foolish?'

'You took a great deal too much of my sedative,' I answered.

'I feel quite well,' he said; 'but I didn't know I had taken any
sedative at all. I'm glad I didn't do anything silly last night.'

I ran away to prepare the tea. The situation was too much for me.

'My poor Diaz!' I said, when we had begun to drink the tea, and he was
sitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes full of sleep, his chin rough,
and his hair magnificently disarranged, 'you did one thing that was silly
las