he two hundred and eighty
francs he owed her, but he almost immediately reflected that he would
only have a hundred and twenty left, a sum utterly insufficient to carry
on his new duties in suitable fashion, and so put off this resolution to
a future day.

During a couple of days he was engaged in settling down, for he had
inherited a special table and a set of pigeon holes in the large room
serving for the whole of the staff. He occupied one end of the room,
while Boisrenard, whose head, black as a crow's, despite his age, was
always bent over a sheet of paper, had the other. The long table in the
middle belonged to the staff. Generally it served them to sit on, either
with their legs dangling over the edges, or squatted like tailors in the
center. Sometimes five or six would be sitting on it in that fashion,
perseveringly playing cup and ball. Duroy had ended by having a taste
for this amusement, and was beginning to get expert at it, under the
guidance, and thanks to the advice of Saint-Potin. Forestier, grown
worse, had lent him his fine cup and ball in West Indian wood, the last
he had bought, and which he found rather too heavy for him, and Duroy
swung with vigorous arm the big black ball at the end of its string,
counting quickly to himself: "One--two--three--four--five--six." It
happened precisely that for the first time he spiked the ball twenty
times running, the very day that he was to dine at Madame Walter's. "A
good day," he thought, "I am successful in everything." For skill at
cup and ball really conferred a kind of superiority in the office of
the _Vie Francaise_.

He left the office early to have time to dress, and was going up the Rue
de Londres when he saw, trotting along in front of him, a little woman
whose figure recalled that of Madame de Marelle. He felt his cheeks
flush, and his heart began to beat. He crossed the road to get a view of
her. She stopped, in order to cross over, too. He had made a mistake,
and breathed again. He had often asked how he ought to behave if he met
her face to face. Should he bow, or should he seem not to have seen
her. "I should not see her," he thought.

It was cold; the gutters were frozen, and the pavement dry and gray in
the gas-light. When he got home he thought: "I must change my lodgings;
this is no longer good enough for me." He felt nervous and lively,
capable of anything; and he said aloud, as he walked from his bed to the
window: "It is fortune at last--