The day after that famous soiree, I went to the post-office ostensibly to carry the letter containing those triumphant details, but in reality to see Louise, for any servant possessed sufficient intelligence to acquit himself of such a commission.  Imagine my surprise and disappointment at finding instead of Madame Taverneau a strange face, who gruffly announced that the post-mistress had gone away for a few days with Madame Louise Guerin.  The dove had flown, leaving to mark its passage a few white feathers in its mossy nest, a faint perfume of grace in this common-place mansion!

I could have questioned Madame Taverneau’s fat substitute, but I am principled against asking questions; things are explained soon enough.  Disenchantment is the key to all things.  When I like a woman I carefully avoid all her acquaintance, any one who can tell me aught about her.  The sound of her name pronounced by careless lips, puts me to flight; the letters that she receives might be given me open and I should throw them, unread, into the fire.  If in speaking she makes any allusion to the past events of her life, I change the conversation; I tremble when she begins a recital, lest some disillusionizing incident should escape her which would destroy the impression I had formed of her.  As studiously as others hunt after secrets I avoid them; if I have ever learned anything of a woman I loved, it has always been in spite of my earnest efforts, and what I have known I have carefully endeavored to forget.

Such is my system.  I said nothing to the fat woman, but entered Louise’s deserted chamber.

Everything was as she had left it.

A bunch of wild flowers, used as a model, had not had time to fade; an unfinished bouquet rested on the easel, as if awaiting the last touches of the pencil.  Nothing betokened a final departure.  One would have said that Louise might enter at any moment.  A little black mitten lay upon a chair; I picked it up—­and would have pressed it to my lips, if such an action had not been deplorably rococo.

Then I threw myself into an old arm-chair, by the side of the bed—­like Faust in Marguerite’s room—­lifting the curtains with as much precaution as if Louise reposed beneath.  You are going to laugh at me, I know, dear Roger, but I assure you, I have never been able to gaze upon a young girl’s bed without emotion.

That little pillow, the sole confidant of timid dreams, that narrow couch, fitted like a tomb for but one alabaster form, inspired me with tender melancholy.  No anacreontic thoughts came to me, I assure you, nor any disposition to rhyme in ette, herbette, filette, coudrette.  The love I bear to noble poesy saved me from such an exhibition of bad taste.

A crucifix, over which hung a piece of blessed box, spread its ivory arms above Louise’s untroubled slumber.  Such simple piety touched me.  I dislike bigots, but I detest atheists.

Musing there alone it flashed upon me that Louise Guerin had never been married, in spite of her assertion.  I am disposed to doubt the existence of the late Albert Guerin.  A sedate and austere atmosphere surrounds Louise, suggesting the convent or the boarding-school.