“From delicacy they left Fly to Only-One-Eye from Saturday night to Monday morning, and we only deceived him during the week, in Paris, from the Seine, which, for boatmen like us, was hardly deceiving him at all.  The situation had this peculiarity, that the four freebooters of Fly’s favors were quite aware of this partition of her among themselves, and that they spoke of it to each other, and even then, with allusions that made her laugh very much.  Only-One-Eye alone seemed to know nothing, and that peculiar position gave rise to some embarrassment between him and us, and seemed to separate him from us, to isolate him, to raise a barrier across our former confidence and our former intimacy.  That gave him a difficult and a rather ridiculous part to play towards us, the part of a deceived lover, almost a husband’s part.

“As he was very clever and gifted with the special faculty of not showing what he felt, we sometimes asked each other whether he did not guess anything, and he took care to let us know, in a manner that was painful for us.  We were going to breakfast at Bougival, and we were rowing vigorously, when La Toque, who had, that morning, the triumphant look of a man who was satisfied, and who, sitting by the steers-woman, seemed to squeeze himself rather too close to her, in our estimation, stopped the rowing by calling out:  ‘Stop!’

“The four oars were drawn out of the water, and then, turning to his neighbor, he said to her:  ‘Why were you called Fly?’ But before she could reply, the voice of Only-One-Eye, who was sitting in the bows, said dryly:  ‘Because she settles on all the carrion.’

“There was a dead silence, and an embarrassed pause, which was followed by an inclination to laugh, while Fly herself looked very much confused, and La Toque gave the order:  ‘Row on, all;’ and the boat started again.  The incident was closed, and light let in upon the subject, and that little adventure made no difference in our habits, but it only re-established cordiality between Only-One-Eye and us.  He once more became the honored proprietor of the Fly from Saturday night until Monday morning, as his superiority over all of us had been thoroughly established by that definition, which, moreover, closed one of the questions about the word Fly.  For the future we were satisfied with playing the secondary part of grateful and polite friends who profited discreetly by the week days, without any contention of any kind among ourselves.

“That answered very well for about three months, but then suddenly Fly assumed a strange attitude towards us.  She was less merry, nervous, uneasy, and almost irritable, and we frequently asked her:  ’What is the matter with you?’ And she replied:  ‘Nothing; leave me alone.’