“You know her then?”

“Do I know Felicia?  Why, our desks were next each other in the first form.  We had the same garden.  Such a nice girl, and so handsome and clever!”

And, observing the pleasure with which she was listened to, Aline used to recall the times which already formed a past for her, seductive and melancholy like all pasts.  She was very much alone in life, the little Felicia.  On Thursdays, when the visitors’ names were called out in the parlour, there was no one for her; except from time to time a good but rather absurd lady, formerly a dancer, it was said, whom Felicia called the Fairy.  In the same way she used to have pet names for all the people she cared for and whom she transformed in her imaginations.  In the holidays they used to see each other.  Mme. Joyeuse, while she refused to allow Aline to visit the studio of M. Ruys, used to invite Felicia over for whole days, very short days they seemed, minglings of study, music, dual dreams, young intimate conversations.  “Oh, when she used to talk to me of her art, with that enthusiasm which she put into everything, how delighted I was to listen to her!  How many things I have understood through her, of which I should never have had any idea.  Even now when we go to the Louvre with papa, or to the exhibition of the 1st of May, that special feeling I have about a beautiful piece of sculpture, a good picture, carries me back immediately to Felicia.  In my early girlhood she represented art to me, and it corresponded with her beauty.  Her nature was a little vague, but so kind, I always felt she was something superior to myself, that bore me to great heights without frightening me.  Suddenly she stopped coming to see me.  I wrote to her; no reply.  Later on, fame came to her; to me great sorrows, absorbing duties.  And of all that friendship, which was very deep, however, since I cannot speak of it without—­’three, four, five’—­nothing now remains except old memories like dead ashes.”

Bending over her work, the brave girl made haste to count her stitches, to imprison her regret in the capricious designs of her tapestry, while de Gery, moved as he heard the testimony of those pure lips against the calumnies of rejected young dandies or of jealous comrades, felt himself raised, restored to the proud dignity of his love.  This sensation was so sweet to him that he returned in search of it very often, not only on the evenings of the lessons, but on other evenings, too, and almost forgot to go to see Felicia for the pleasure of hearing Aline talk about her.

One evening, as he was leaving the Joyeuses’ home, Paul met the neighbour, M. Andre, on the landing, who was waiting for him and took his arm feverishly.

“Monsieur de Gery,” he said in a trembling voice, with eyes that glittered behind their spectacles, the one feature of his face that was visible in the darkness.  “I have an explanation to ask from you.  Will you come up to my rooms for a moment?”