to the door; she is dressed for walking, ready to go to her mother's, her
rose-colored parasol beside her.

On the floor are spread out all the fine silver dollars which, according
to our agreement, I had given her the evening before. With the competent
dexterity of an old money-changer she fingers them, turns them over,
throws them on the floor, and, armed with a little mallet ad hoc, rings
them vigorously against her ear, singing the while I know not what little
pensive bird-like song which I daresay she improvises as she goes along.

Well, after all, it is even more completely Japanese than I could
possibly have imagined it--this last scene of my married life! I feel
inclined to laugh. How simple I have been, to allow myself to be taken
in by the few clever words she whispered yesterday, as she walked beside
me, by a tolerably pretty little phrase embellished as it was by the
silence of two o'clock in the morning, and all the wonderful enchantments
of night.

Ah! not more for Yves than for me, not more for me than for Yves, has any
feeling passed through that little brain, that little heart.

When I have looked at her long enough, I call:

"Hi! Chrysantheme!"

She turns confused, and reddening even to her ears at having been caught
at this work.

She is quite wrong, however, to be so much troubled, for I am, on the
contrary, delighted. The fear that I might be leaving her in some