* * * * * Just a moment to banish the black cat from my mind, and I’ll pursue my thoughts anew. Now then—of my fortune and misfortune. But did I not previously think: _or_ my misfortune? I answered her, Yes. She could leave the manuscript with me. I would read it over,—read it over very carefully, and tell her my opinion. The whole truth? Of course. When would she come for the answer? I’d tell her a few days later. Why a few days later? Why not to-morrow? She would come to-morrow. The piece was such a short one. One could read it in less than half an hour. So I yield to her. Very well. Let her come to-morrow. My wife has meanwhile entered the room. I introduce her. My wife is affable and smiles, but _she_ is sullen, curt and unbending. She arises from her place. Now she will leave. My wife laughs. “Am I driving you away?” She, somewhat aloof, replies, No. She has simply been sitting long enough. And on the threshold she asks, insinuatingly, “You will read my manuscript personally?” For a second I am strongly impelled to return her manuscript, thus wreaking vengeance upon her for my wife. But she has already closed the door and is gone, without having waited for a reply. Perhaps she had noticed the spark of displeasure that shone in my eyes. “What sort of impudent cat is that?” asks my wife. I burst into laughter. * * * * * The next day she did not come. Nor the day after. But on both days I _thought_ that she had not come. I did not wish to give the matter thought, but it haunted me, made me uneasy. If she had promised to come, she should have kept her word. I read her manuscript. A very wretched tale. It was supposed to depict the yearning of a solitary woman for an unknown man. But the words were weak and the colours false. And I could not get away from the idea that perhaps she had written them just to have a pretext for coming to me. “The impudent cat!” On the third day she came. From the door she laughed to me with her deep, staccato laughter. “Kept you waiting?” “Catch me telling you, you cat!” I bid her enter the room. She advances to the centre, looks about, gazes toward the door by which my wife entered three days before, directs her deep look upon me, taking a chair, and speaks with her deep, velvety voice. “Have you read through my manuscript?” I am about to tell her the truth, but I feel that I cannot dismiss her from me forever,—that I desire her to come to me again,—so I reply, “I’ve read it, but not read it through. You will have to forgive me.” “Where did you leave off?” Yes, where am I to tell her I left off? “Perhaps you haven’t even started to read it yet?” she suggests, seeing that no answer to her previous question is forthcoming. I assure her that I really have read her tale, commencing to relate the contents, and betraying myself by disclosing a knowledge of the end. “Then you’ve read it all!” she laughs.