His first movement upon finding himself alone in his room, was one of pride.  He looked up at the ceiling, pitying the enamored sailor that a week before had been dwelling on the floor above.  Poor man!  How they must have made fun of him!...  Ulysses admired himself as though he were an entirely new personality, happy and triumphant, completely separated from that other creature by dolorous periods of humiliations and failures that he did not wish to recall.

The long, long hours in which he waited with such anxiety!...  He strolled about smoking, lighting one cigar with the remnant of the preceding one.  Then he opened the window, wishing to get rid of the perfume of strong tobacco.  She only liked Oriental cigarettes....  And as the acrid odor of the strong, succulent Havana cigar persisted in the room, he searched in his dressing-case and sprinkled around the contents of various perfumed essences which he had long ago forgotten.

A sudden uneasiness disturbed his waiting.  Perhaps she who was going to come did not know which was his room.  He was not sure that he had given her the directions with sufficient clearness.  It was possible that she might make a mistake....  He began to believe that really she had made a mistake.

Fear and impatience made him open his door, taking his stand in the corridor in order to look down toward Freya’s closed room.  Every time that footsteps sounded on the stairway or the grating of the elevator creaked, the bearded sailor trembled with a childish uneasiness.  He wanted to hide himself and yet at the same time he wanted to look to see if she was the one who was coming.

The guests occupying the same floor kept seeing him withdraw into his room in the most inexplicable attitudes.  Sometimes he would remain firmly in the corridor as though, worn out with useless calling, he were looking for the domestics; and at other times they surprised him with his head poking out of the half-open door or hastily withdrawing it.  An old Italian count, passing by, gave him a smile of intelligence and comradeship....  He was in the secret!  The man was undoubtedly waiting for one of the maids of the hotel.

He ended by settling himself in his room, but leaving his door ajar.  The rectangle of bright light that it marked on the floor and wall opposite would guide Freya, showing her the way....

But he was not able to keep up this signal very long.  Scantily clad dames in kimonos and gentlemen in pyjamas were slipping discreetly down the passage way in soft, slipper-clad silence, all going in the same direction, and casting wrathful glances toward the lighted doorway.

Finally he had to close the door.  He opened a book, but it was impossible to read two paragraphs consecutively.  His watch said twelve o’clock.

“She will not come!...  She will not come!” he cried in desperation.

A new idea revived his drooping spirits.  It was ridiculous that so discreet a person as Freya should venture to come to his room while there was a light under the door.  Love needed obscurity and mystery.  And besides, this visible hope might attract the notice of some curious person.