civil to him as possible, and so she kept out of his way. She heard the
heavy front door close, and gave a little sigh of relief.

"If he had come in here and tried to talk to me," she said, "I should
have screamed."

* * * * *

Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream, uplifted,
cloud-enwrapped, made his way homeward. He walked all the long
distance--that is, looking backward upon it, later, he thought he must
have walked, but the half-hour was a blank to him, an indeterminate, a
chaotic whirl of things and emotions.

In the little flat in the rue d'Assas he came upon Richard Hartley, who,
having found the door unlocked and the master of the place absent, had
sat comfortably down, with a pipe and a stack of _Couriers Français_, to
wait. Ste. Marie burst into the doorway of the room where his friend sat
at ease. Hat, gloves, and stick fell away from him in a sort of shower.
He extended his arms high in the air. His face was, as it were,
luminous. The Englishman regarded him morosely. He said:

"You look as if somebody had died and left you money. What the devil you
looking like that for?"

"Hé!" cried Ste. Marie, in a great voice. "Hé, the world is mine!
Embrace me, my infant! Sacred name of a pig, why do you sit there?
Embrace me!"

He began to stride about the room, his head between his hands. Speech