The cab started off and passed the top of the Rue Coëtlogon. 'He is weeping now,' said Claude to himself; 'what would he say if he saw me going to Colette's?' He little thought that as soon as he had entered the house René had told his sister to get out his dress suit. Astonished at such a request, Emilie ventured upon an interrogation, but was met with, 'I have no time to talk,' uttered in such harsh tones that she dared not insist. It was Friday, and René, as he had told Claude, knew that Suzanne was at the Opera. He had calculated that this was her week. Why had the idea that he must see her again and at once taken such a firm hold upon him that, in his impatience to be off, he quite upset both his sister and Françoise? Was he about to put his threat into practice and insult his faithless mistress in public? Or did he only wish to feast his eyes once more on her deceptive beauty before his departure? On the occasion of his visit to the Gymnase a week ago, after his interview with Colette, his aim had been clear and definite. It was the outward similarity of that visit with the step he was now taking that made him feel more keenly what a change had come over him and his surroundings in such a short space of time. How hopefully had he then betaken himself to the theatre, and now in what mood of despair! Why was he going at all? He asked himself this question as he ascended the grand staircase, but he felt himself impelled by some force superior to all reason or effort of will. Since he had seen Suzanne leave the house in the Rue du Mont-Thabor he had acted like an automaton. He took his seat in the stalls just as the ballet scene from 'Faust' was drawing to a close. The first effect produced by the music on his overstrung nerves was a feeling of almost morbid sadness; tears started to his eyes and dimmed his vision as he turned his opera-glasses upon Suzanne's box--that box in which she had looked so divinely modest and pretty on the morrow of Madame Komof's _soirée_, though not more so than she did now.