Her strident, shrill laugh, revealing magnificent, but short and pointed teeth, in a mocking mouth, vexed him.

“She has been playing with me,” he said to himself, and dissatisfied with the turn the conversation had taken, and furious at seeing this woman so calm, so different from her burning letters, he asked, in a tone of irritation, “Am I to know why you laugh?”

“Pardon me.  It’s a trick my nerves play on me, sometimes in public places.  But never mind.  Let us be reasonable and talk things over.  You tell me you love me—­”

“And I mean it.”

“Well, admitting that I too am not indifferent, where is this going to lead us?  Oh, you know so well, you poor dear, that you refused, right at first, the meeting which I asked in a moment of madness—­and you gave well-thought-out reasons for refusing.”

“But I refused because I did not know then that you were the women in the case!  I have told you that it was several days later that Des Hermies unwittingly revealed your identity to me.  Did I hesitate as soon as I knew?  No!  I immediately implored you to come.”

“That may be, but you admit that I’m right when I claim that you wrote your first letters to another and not me.”

She was pensive for a moment.  Durtal began to be prodigiously bored by this discussion.  He thought it more prudent not to answer, and was seeking a change of subject that would put an end to the deadlock.

She herself got him out of his difficulty.  “Let us not discuss it any more,” she said, smiling, “we shall not get anywhere.  You see, this is the situation:  I am married to a very nice man who loves me and whose only crime is that he represents the rather insipid happiness which one has right at hand.  I started this correspondence with you, so I am to blame, and believe me, on his account I suffer.  You have work to do, beautiful books to write.  You don’t need to have a crazy woman come walking into your life.  So, you see, the best thing is for us to remain friends, but true friends, and go no further.”

“And it is the woman who wrote me such vivid letters, who now speaks to me of reason, good sense, and God knows what!”

“But be frank, now.  You don’t love me.”

“I don’t?”

He took her hands, gently.  She made no resistance, but looking at him squarely she said, “Listen.  If you had loved me you would have come to see me; and yet for months you haven’t tried to find out whether I was alive or dead.”

“But you understand that I could not hope to be welcomed by you on the terms we now are on, and too, in your parlour there are guests, your husband—­I have never had you even a little bit to myself at your home.”

He pressed her hands more tightly and came closer to her.  She regarded him with her smoky eyes, in which he now saw that dolent, almost dolorous expression which had captivated him.  He completely lost control of himself before this voluptuous and plaintive face, but with a firm gesture she freed her hands.