Rodolphe and Marcel went to live together. Each had taken a new idol whose name they were not exactly acquainted with. Sometimes it happened that one spoke of Musette and the other of Mimi, and then they had a whole evening of it. They recalled to one another their old life, the songs of Musette and the songs of Mimi, nights passed without sleep, idle mornings, and dinners only partaken of in dreams. One by one they hummed over in these recolletive ducts all the bygone hours, and they usually wound up by saying that after all they were still happy to find themselves together, their feet on the fender, stirring the December log, smoking their pipes, and having as a pretext for open conversation between them that which they whispered to themselves when alone--that they had dearly loved these beings who had vanished, bearing away with them a part of their youth, and that perhaps they loved them still. One evening when passing along the Boulevard, Marcel perceived a few paces ahead of him a young lady who, in alighting from a cab, exposed the lower part of a white stocking of admirable shape. The very driver himself devoured with his eyes this charming gratification in excess of his fare. "By Jove," said Marcel. "That is a neat leg, I should like to offer it my arm. Come, now, how shall I manage to accord it? Ha! I have it--it is a fairly novel plan. Excuse me, madame," continued he, approaching the fair unknown, whose face at the outset he could not at first get a full view of, "but you have not by chance found my handkerchief?" "Yes, sir," replied the young lady, "here it is." And she placed in Marcel's hand a handkerchief she had been holding in her own. The artist rolled into an abyss of astonishment. But all at once a burst of laughter full in his face recalled him to himself. By this joyous outbreak he recognized his old love. It was Mademoiselle Musette. "Ah!" she exclaimed. "Monsieur Marcel in quest of gallant adventures. What do you think of this one, eh? It does not lack fun." "I think it endurable," replied Marcel. "Where are you going so late in this region?" asked Musette. "I am going into that edifice," said the artist, pointing to a little theater where he was on the free list. "For the sake of art?" "No, for the sake of Laura." "Who is Laura?" continued Musette, whose eyes shot forth notes of interrogation. Marcel kept up the tone. "She is a chimera whom I am pursuing, and who plays here." And he pretended to pull out an imaginary shirt frill. "You are very witty this evening," said Musette. "And you very curious," observed Marcel. "Do no speak so loud, everyone can hear us, and they will take us for two lovers quarrelling." "It would not be the first time that that happened," said Marcel. Musette read a challenge in this sentence, and quickly replied, "And it will not perhaps be the last, eh?" Her words were plain, they whizzed past Marcel's ear like a bullet.