time the familiarity passes all bounds; and it is better so. I have been
so surprised and annoyed from the first that I shall be easily able to
refuse the imprudent fellow what he will ask of me." In his anger the
novelist sought to arm himself against his weakness, of which he was
aware--not the weakness of insufficient will, but of a too vivid
perception of the motives which the person with whom he was in conflict
obeyed. He, however, was to learn that there is no greater dissolvent of
rancor than intelligent curiosity. His was, indeed, aroused by a simple
detail, which consisted in ascertaining under what conditions the Pole
had travelled; his dressing-case, his overcoat and his hat, still white
with the dust of travel, were lying upon the table in the antechamber.

Evidently he had come direct from Warsaw to the Place de la Trinite-des-
Monts. A prey to what delirium of passion? Dorsenne had not time to ask
the question any more than he had presence of mind to compose his manner
to such severity that it would cut short all familiarity on the part of
his strange visitor. At the noise made by the opening of the antechamber
door, Boleslas started up. He seized both hands of the man into whose
apartments he had obtruded himself. He pressed them. He gazed at him
with feverish eyes, with eyes which had not closed for hours, and he
murmured, drawing the novelist into the tiny salon:

"You have come, Julien, you are here! Ah, I thank you for having
answered my call at once! Let me look at you, for I am sure I have a
friend beside me, one in whom I can trust, with whom I can speak frankly,
upon whom I can depend. If this solitude had lasted much longer I should
have become mad."

Although Madame Steno's lover belonged to the class of excitable, nervous
people who exaggerate their feelings by an unconscious wildness of tone