I
am none of the things which you may think I am, from my writing
to you this way. The fact is that I have just finished reading
your last book,"

"She has taken her time," murmured Durtal, "it appeared a year ago."

"melancholy as an imprisoned soul vainly beating its wings
against the bars of its cage."

"Oh, hell! What a compliment. Anyway, it rings false, like all of them."

"And now, Monsieur, though I am convinced that it is always
folly and madness to try to realize a desire, will you permit
that a sister in lassitude meet you some evening in a place
which you shall designate, after which we shall return, each of
us, into our own interior, the interior of persons destined to
fall because they are out of line with their 'fellows'? Adieu,
Monsieur, be assured that I consider you a somebody in a century
of nobodies.

"Not knowing whether this note will elicit a reply, I abstain
from making myself known. This evening a maid will call upon
your concierge and ask him if there is a letter for Mme.
Maubel."

"Hmm!" said Durtal, folding up the letter. "I know her. She must be one
of these withered dames who are always trying to cash outlawed
kiss-tickets and soul-warrants in the lottery of love. Forty-five years
old at least. Her _clientele_ is composed of boys, who are always
satisfied if they don't have to pay, and men of letters, who are yet
more easily satisfied--for the ugliness of authors' mistresses is
proverbial. Unless this is simply a practical joke. But who would be
playing one on me--I don't know anybody--and why?"

In any case, he would simply not reply.

But in spite of himself he reopened the letter.

"Well now, what do I risk? If this woman wants to sell me an over-ripe
heart, there is nothing forcing me to purchase it. I don't commit myself
to anything by going to an assignation. But where shall I meet her?
Here? No! Once she gets into my apartment complications arise, for it is
much more difficult to throw a woman out of your house than simply to
walk off and leave her at a street corner. Suppose I designated the
corner of the rue de Sevres and the rue de la Chaise, under the wall of
the Abbaye-au-Bois. It is solitary, and then, too, it is only a minute's
walk from here. Or no, I will begin vaguely, naming no meeting-place at
all. I shall solve that problem later, when I get her reply."

He wrote a letter in which he spoke