"Do you know, Dr. Socrates told me the other day that he had seen an apparition. He saw a donkey-boy who had murdered a little girl. I dreamt of the story last night, only in my dream I could not make out whether the donkey-boy was a man or a woman. What a mix-up the dream was! Talking of Dr. Socrates, just guess whose lover he is--why, the lady who keeps the circulating library in the Rue Mazarine. She is no longer very young, but she is very intelligent. Do you think he is faithful to her? I'll take off my stockings, it's more becoming." And she went on to tell him a story of the theatre: "I really don't think I shall remain at the Odeon much longer." "Why?" "You'll see. Pradel said to me to-day, before rehearsal 'My dear little Nanteuil, there has never been anything between us. It is ridiculous.' He was extremely decorous, but he gave me to understand that we were in a false position with regard to one another, which could not go on indefinitely. You must know that Pradel has established a rule. Formerly he used to pick and choose among his _pensionnaires_. He had favourites, and that caused an outcry. Nowadays, for the better administration of the theatre, he takes them all, even those he has no liking for, even those who are distasteful to him. There are no more favourites. Everything goes splendidly. Ah, he's a director all through, is Pradel!" As Robert, in the bed, listened in silence, she went up to him and shook him: "Then it's all the same to you if I carry on with Pradel?" "No, my dear, it would not be all the same to me. But nothing I might say would prevent it." Bending over him, she caressed him ardently, pretending to threaten and to punish him; and she cried: "Then you don't really love me, that you are not jealous. I insist that you shall be jealous." Then, suddenly, she moved away from him, and hitching over her left shoulder her chemise, which had slipped down under her right breast, she loitered in front of the dressing-table and inquired uneasily: "Robert, you have not brought anything here from the other room?" "Nothing." Thereupon, softly, timidly, she slipped into the bed. But hardly had she lain down when she raised herself from the pillow on her elbow, and, craning her neck, listened with parted lips. It seemed to her that she could hear slight sounds of footsteps along the gravel path which she had heard in the house in the Boulevard de Villiers. She ran to the window; she saw the Judas tree, the lawn, the garden gate. Knowing what she was yet to see, she sought to hide her face in her hands, but she could not raise her arms, and Chevalier's face rose up before her. CHAPTER XIII She had returned home in a burning fever. Robert, after dining _en famille_, had retired to his attic. His nerves were on edge, and he was badly out of temper as a result of the manner in which Nanteuil had left him.