When Séverine reached the Rue Cardinet at twenty minutes to three, to keep her appointment with Jacques, she found herself before her time. He occupied a small room right at the top of a great house, to which he only ascended at night for the purpose of sleeping. And he slept out twice a week, on the two nights he passed at Havre, between the evening and morning express. On that particular day, however, drenched with rain, broken down with fatigue, he had gone there and thrown himself on his bed. So that Séverine would perhaps have waited for him in vain, had not a quarrel in an adjoining apartment, a husband brutalising his shrieking wife, awakened him. He had washed and dressed in a very bad humour, having recognised her below, on the pavement, while looking out of his garret window. "So it's you at last!" she exclaimed, when she saw him issue from the front door. "I was afraid I had misunderstood. You really did tell me at the corner of the Rue Saussure----" And without awaiting his answer, raising her eyes to the house, she remarked: "So it's there you live?" Without telling her, he had made the appointment before his own door, because the depôt where they had to go together, was opposite. But her question worried him. He imagined she was going to take advantage of their good fellowship, to ask him to let her see his room, which was so simply furnished, and in such disorder, that he felt ashamed of it. "Oh! I don't live there!" he replied; "I perch. Let us be quick, I am afraid the chief may have already gone out!" And so it happened, for when they presented themselves at the small house which the latter occupied behind the depôt, within the station walls, they did not find him. In vain they went from shed to shed, everywhere they were told to return at about half-past four, if they wished to be sure of catching him at the repairing workshops. "Very well, we will return," said Séverine. Then, when she was again outside, alone in the company of Jacques, she remarked: "If you are free, perhaps you will not mind if I remain and wait with you?" He could not refuse; and, moreover, notwithstanding the gloomy anxiety she caused, she exercised such a great and ever-increasing charm over him, that the sullen attitude he had made up his mind to observe, vanished at her sweet glances. This one, with her long, tender, timid face, must love like a faithful hound, whom one would not even have the courage to thrash. "Of course I shall not leave you," he answered, in a less surly tone; "only we have more than an hour to get through. Would you like to go to a café?" She smiled, delighted to find him more cordial. Vivaciously she protested: "Oh! no, no; I don't want to shut myself up! I prefer walking on your arm through the streets, anywhere you like."