Olivier, who was thinking the same things, misunderstood in the same way. He got up in a desperate hurry and held out his hand. At least he wanted to say to Edouard: “Shall I see you--thee--again soon? Shall we see each other again soon?”... Edouard was waiting for these words. Nothing came but a commonplace “Good-bye!” X THE CLOAK-ROOM TICKET THE sun woke Bernard. He rose from his bench with a violent headache. His gallant courage of the morning had left him. He felt abominably lonely and his heart was swelling with something brackish and bitter which he would not call unhappiness, but which brought the tears to his eyes. What should he do? Where should he go?... If his steps turned towards St. Lazare Station at the time that he knew Olivier was due there, it was without any definite purpose and merely with the wish to see his friend again. He reproached himself for having left so abruptly that morning; perhaps Olivier had been hurt?... Was he not the creature in the world he liked best?... When he saw him arm in arm with Edouard a peculiar feeling made him follow the pair and at the same time not show himself; painfully conscious of being _de trop_, he would yet have liked to slip in between them. He thought Edouard looked charming; only a little taller than Olivier and with a scarcely less youthful figure. It was he whom he made up his mind to address; he would wait until Olivier left him. But address him? Upon what pretext? It was at this moment that he caught sight of the little bit of crumpled paper as it escaped from Edouard’s hand. He picked it up, saw that it was a cloak-room ticket ... and, by Jove, here was the wished-for pretext! He saw the two friends go into a café, hesitated a moment in perplexity, and then continued his monologue: “Now a normal fathead would have nothing better to do than to return this paper at once,” he said to himself. “‘_How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable_ _Seem to me all the uses of this world!_’ as I have heard Hamlet remark. Bernard, Bernard, what thought is this that is tickling you? It was only yesterday that you were rifling a drawer. On what path are you entering? Consider, my boy, consider.... Consider that the cloak-room attendant who took Edouard’s luggage will be gone to his lunch at 12 o’clock, and that there will be another one on duty. And didn’t you promise your friend to stick at nothing?”