People swarmed as usual in the streets, jostled one another off the pavement, and ruined one another’s umbrellas.  All the cabs were taken up; they splashed along and bespattered the foot passengers to the best of their ability, while the asphalt glistened in the dim light with a dense coating of mud.

The cafes were crowded to excess; regular customers went round and scolded, and the waiters ran against each other in their hurry.  Ever and anon, amid the confusion, could be heard the sharp little ting of the bell on the buffet; it was la dame du comptoir summoning a waiter, while her calm eyes kept a watch upon the whole cafe.

A lady sat at the buffet of a large restaurant on the Boulevard Sebastopol.  She was widely known for her cleverness and her amiable manners.

She had glossy black hair, which, in spite of the fashion, she wore parted in the middle of her forehead in natural curls.  Her eyes were almost black and her mouth full, with a little shadow of a moustache.

Her figure was still very pretty, although, if the truth were known, she had probably passed her thirtieth year; and she had a soft little hand, with which she wrote elegant figures in her cashbook, and now and then a little note.  Madame Virginie could converse with the young dandies who were always hanging about the buffet, and parry their witticisms, while she kept account with the waiters and had her eye upon every corner of the great room.

She was really pretty only from five till seven in the afternoon—­ that being the time at which Alphonse invariably visited the cafe.  Then her eyes never left him; she got a fresher color, her mouth was always trembling into a smile, and her movements became somewhat nervous.  That was the only time of the day when she was ever known to give a random answer or to make a mistake in the accounts; and the waiters tittered and nudged each other.

For it was generally thought that she had formerly had relations with Alphonse, and some would even have it that she was still his mistress.

She herself best knew how matters stood; but it was impossible to be angry with Monsieur Alphonse.  She was well aware that he cared no more for her than for twenty others; that she had lost him—­ nay, that he had never really been hers.  And yet her eyes besought a friendly look, and when he left the cafe without sending her a confidential greeting, it seemed as though she suddenly faded, and the waiters said to each other:  “Look at madame; she is gray tonight.”

Over at the windows it was still light enough to read the papers; a couple of young men were amusing themselves with watching the crowds which streamed past.  Seen through the great plate-glass windows, the busy forms gliding past one another in the dense, wet, rainy air looked like fish in an aquarium.  Further back in the cafe, and over the billiard-tables, the gas was lighted.  Alphonse was playing with a couple of friends.