This reasoning resulted, after weighing the pros and cons, after resolving to speak to him and then proving to myself the ridiculousness of doing so, in my once more, about six o’clock, crossing the threshold of his house in the Place Delaborde, only to discover that Molan was not there. I went to dinner hoping to meet him as I had done the previous evening; I did not do so. Seeing the impossibility of meeting him, I wanted at least to have another talk with the woman who had been the cause of my fruitless search, the seductive Camille Favier, whose frail silhouette, blue eyes and emotional smile, pursued me with an obsession much more irresistible than my pity justified. That was the pretext I found as I made my way to the Vaudeville. I reached the theatre even before the end of the first act. My weakness inflicted upon me a feeling of shame, which made me hesitate about entering. I can see myself now walking round the entrance, first of all looking at the staircase leading to the theatre and then at the stage door in the Chaussée d’Antin. At last I made up my mind to enter by the latter door, and as I did so the audience were coming out in the interval. I ran up against Jacques himself. “Are you going to see Camille?” he asked with a heartiness through which I discerned malice, and I believe I blushed as I replied— “No, I am running after you.” “You have come to plead her cause, I am sure,” he said as he took my arm. “I know you had a talk with her this afternoon and even defended me. I thank you, for it would have been quite legitimate for you to try and profit by the situation. Only you are an honourable man. The cause is won and we are so reconciled, your friend and I, that to-morrow she is coming to visit me in my 'Abode of Love,’ as your friend Larcher calls it.” “What of Madam de Bonnivet?” I asked him, surprised at this unexpected change of front. “Madam de Bonnivet is nothing but a simpleton, a woman of the world in all her horror. She kept the appointment at Pére Lachaise. She came there with the intention of making me climb to the top of the yew trees between which we walked. She played the coquette there more coldly than in her own drawing-room. As I don’t like to be laughed at, we separated after what was almost a quarrel.” “So Camille benefits by the desire rejected by the other woman?” I interrupted. “That is what is called a 'transfer’ in the money market.”