It was Raoul Rivière's old study. Through the open bay-windows, through the sparse young foliage of the trees, one could see the Seine in the darkness, and on its sombre, seemingly immobile mass, the reflections of houses whose windows were being lighted upon the opposite bank, and of the daylight that was dying above the hills of Saint-Cloud. Raoul Rivière, who was a man of taste--although disinclined to use it to satisfy the insipid routine or laughable caprices of his wealthy clients--had chosen for himself, at the gates of Paris, on the Quai de Boulogne, an old Louis XVI mansion that he had had no hand in building. He had contented himself with making it comfortable. His study had also served him admirably for affairs of gallantry, and there was reason to believe that the room had not suffered from lack of use in this capacity. Here Rivière had received more than one amiable visit, suspected by no one; for the chamber had its private entrance from the garden. But for two years the entrance had been useless, and the sole feminine visitor had been Annette. Annette, coming and going, tidying things, pouring water into a vase of flowers, constantly moving about; then suddenly motionless over a book, curled up in her favorite corner of the divan, whence she might silently watch the passage of the sinuous river and, without interrupting her absent-minded reading, carry on an absent-minded conversation with her father. But he, sitting yonder, listless and weary, his sly profile catching her slightest movement from the corner of one eye; he, an old spoiled child who could never admit that, wherever he might be, he was not the center of all thoughts, harassed her with witticisms, wheedling questions, insistent, disturbing, in order to attract Annette's attention to himself and make sure that she was really listening to everything. . . . To the very end, touched and delighted that he could not do without her, she gave up everything else for the sake of devoting herself to him alone. Then he was satisfied; and, sure of his public, he showered upon it the resources of his brilliant mind. He shot off his rockets, he laid bare his memories. Of course, he was careful to select only the most flattering; and he arranged them _ad usum Delphini_, to the taste of the _dauphine_, cleverly guessing at her secret curiosities and her sudden fits of bristling repugnance. He told her precisely what she desired to hear; and Annette, all ears, was proud of his confidences. She was quite ready to believe that she possessed more of her father than her mother had ever known. Of his intimate life's story she remained, so she thought, the sole trustee.