Turning from her to her companion, I own I was surprised and puzzled. He was a tall, spare old man, not a grey-beard, but a white-beard, and he had thin snow-white hair. He was dressed neatly indeed, but the very reverse of sumptuously. His black overcoat was threadbare, his carefully polished boots were patched. Yet, everybody averred, it was his affluence that had attracted her; she had taken up with him during the dead season, because she had been “à sec.” A detail that did nothing to relieve my perplexity was the character of his face. Instead of the florid concupiscent face, with coarse lips and fiery eye-balls, I had instinctively expected, I saw a thin, pale face, with mild, melancholy eyes, a gentle face, a refined face, rather a weak face, certainly the very last face the situation called for. He was a beast, of course, but he didn’t look like a beast. He looked like a gentleman, a broken-down, forlorn old gentleman, singularly astray from his proper orbit. They were crossing the Boulevard St. Michel as I was leaving the Café Vachette; and at the corner of the Rue des Ecoles we came front to front. P’tit-Bleu glanced up; her eyes brightened, she gave a little start, and was plainly for stopping to shake hands. I cut her dead.... I cut her dead, and held my course serenely down the Boulevard—though I’m not sure my heart wasn’t pounding. But I could lay as unction to my soul the consciousness of having done the appropriate thing, of having marked my righteous indignation. In a minute, however, I heard the pat-pat of rapid footsteps on the pavement behind me, and my name being called. I hurried on, careful not to turn my head. But, at Cluny, P’tit-Bleu arrived abreast of me. “I want to speak to you,” she gasped, out of breath from running. I shrugged my shoulders. “Will you tell me why you cut me like that just now?” “If you don’t know, I doubt if I could make you understand,” I answered, with an air of, imperial disdain. “You bear me a grudge, hein? For what I did last March? Well, then, you are right. There. I was abominable. But I have been sorry, and I ask your pardon. Now will you let bygones be bygones? Will you forgive me?” “Oh,” I said, “don’t try to play the simpleton with me. You are perfectly well aware that isn’t why I cut you.” “But why, then?” cried she, admirably counterfeiting (as I took for granted) a look and accent of bewilderment. I walked on without speaking. She kept beside me. “But why, then? If it isn’t that, what is it?” “Oh, bah!” “I insist upon your telling me. Tell me.” “Very good, then. I don’t care to know a girl who lives ’collée’ with a gaga,” I said, brutally. P’tit-Bleu flushed suddenly, and faced me with blazing eyes. “Comment done! You believe that?” she cried. “Pooh!” said I. “Oh, mais non, mais non, mais non, alors! You don’t believe that?” “You pay me a poor compliment. Why should you expect me to be ignorant of a thing the whole Quarter knows?”