entire evening, for the night, for life. I answered him: 'Later,
presently, we will see. I feel a little tired.' The fact was I hadn't
the heart to dance. Mamma and I took our seats. A waltz began. Mamma
scolded softly: 'Dance with him, my child, I beg.' I didn't listen to
her. I was abstractedly looking around the room when suddenly I saw in a
corner two eyes fixed, fastened, pinioned on me--two eyes that I well
knew, but that I had some difficulty in recognizing, for they were
tremendously enlarged by a sort of stupor."

"Say by overwhelming admiration."

"As you please But it is here, Aunt Louise, that my interrogation will
begin. Why and how were you there? Where had you dined, Gontran?"

"At the club."

"And what did you intend to do after dinner? Come to Mme. de
Vernieux's?"

"No; Robert d'Aigremont and I had meant to go to the Bouffes-Parisiens."

"You did not go? Why?"

"We had telephoned from the club to have a box; all were sold--"

"So you said to Robert--"

"I said to Robert, 'Let's play bezique;' and I was beaten by one of
those streaks of bad luck--34,000 points in a dozen games--so thoroughly
that towards half-past ten I thought that bezique had lasted long