‘Down below, the sea rustled to and fro over the shingle.’ Or should the lady herself be my informant? For a while, I rather leaned to this alternative. It was more exciting, it seemed to make the writer more signally a man of the world. On the other hand, it was less simple to manage. Wronged persons might be ever so communicative, but I surmised that persons in the wrong were reticent. Mlle. Ange’lique, therefore, would have to be modified by me in appearance and behaviour, toned down, touched up; and poor M. Joumand must look like a man of whom one could believe anything.... ‘She ceased speaking. She gazed down at the fragments of her fan, and then, as though finding in them an image of her own life, whispered, “To think what I once was, monsieur!--what, but for him, I might be, even now!” She buried her face in her hands, then stared out into the night. Suddenly she uttered a short, harsh laugh. ‘Down below, the sea rustled to and fro over the shingle.’ I decided that I must choose the first of these two ways. It was the less chivalrous as well as the less lurid way, but clearly it was the more artistic as well as the easier. The ‘chose vue,’ the ‘tranche de la vie’--this was the thing to aim at. Honesty was the best policy. I must be nothing if not merciless. Maupassant was nothing if not merciless. He would not have spared Mlle. Ange’lique. Besides, why should I libel M. Joumand? Poor--no, not poor M. Joumand! I warned myself against pitying him. One touch of ‘sentimentality,’ and I should be lost. M. Joumand was ridiculous. I must keep him so. But--what was his position in life? Was he a lawyer perhaps?--or the proprietor of a shop in the Rue de Rivoli? I toyed with the possibility that he kept a fan shop--that the business had once been a prosperous one, but had gone down, down, because of his infatuation for this woman to whom he was always giving fans--which she always smashed.... ‘“Ah monsieur, cruel and ungrateful to me though she is, I swear to you that if I had anything left to give, it should be hers; but,” he stared at me with his old hopeless eyes, “the fan she broke to-night was the last--the last, monsieur--of my stock.” Down below,’--but I pulled myself together, and asked pardon of my Muse.