infirmity. He wiped his brow, sighed,
and, looking me full in the face, he asked: "Does smoking annoy you,
monsieur?"

"No, monsieur."

Surely I knew that eye, that voice, that face. But when and where had I
seen them? I had certainly met that man, spoken to him, shaken his hand.
That was a long, long time ago. It was lost in the haze wherein the mind
seems to feel around blindly for memories and pursues them like fleeing
phantoms without being able to seize them. He, too, was observing
me, staring me out of countenance, with the persistence of a man who
remembers slightly but not completely. Our eyes, embarrassed by this
persistent contact, turned away; then, after a few minutes, drawn
together again by the obscure and tenacious will of working memory, they
met once more, and I said: "Monsieur, instead of staring at each other
for an hour or so, would it not be better to try to discover where we
have known each other?"

My neighbor answered graciously: "You are quite right, monsieur."

I named myself: "I am Henri Bonclair, a magistrate."

He hesitated for a few minutes; then, with the vague look and voice
which accompany great mental tension, he said: "Oh, I remember
perfectly. I met you twelve years ago, before the war, at the Poincels!"

"Yes, monsieur. Ah! Ah! You are Lieutenant Revaliere?"

"Yes. I was Captain Revaliere even up to the time when I lost my feet
--both of them together from one cannon ball."

Now that we knew each other's identity we looked at each other again. I
remembered perfectly the handsome, slender youth who led the cotillons
with such frenzied agility and gracefulness that he had been nicknamed
"the fury." Going back into the dim, distant past, I recalled a story
which I had heard and forgotten, one of those stories to which one
listens but forgets, and which leave but a faint impression upon the
memory.

There was something about love in it. Little by little the shadows
cleared up, and the face of a young girl appeared before my eyes. Then
her name struck me with the force of an explosion: Mademoiselle de
Mandel. I remembered everything now. It was indeed a love story, but
quite commonplace. The young girl loved this young man, and when I had
met them there was already talk of the approaching wedding. The youth
seemed to be very much in love, very happy.

I raised my eye to the net, where all the packages which had been
brought in by the servant were trembling from the motion of