Nevertheless I was far from feeling either the one or the other. The presence of the abbé, the supper and the evening spent under the dowager’s eyes, had rendered Madame d’Ionis more reserved than she had been with me in the morning. She also seemed to say in each allusion to our sudden and cordial intimacy: “You know at what price I have granted it to you.” I was vexed with myself, I had been neither submissive enough, or sufficiently independent, I seemed to have betrayed the mission my father had confided to me, without in the least advancing my chimeras of love. The sombre interior reacted upon my impressions and my beautiful apartment wore a gloomy and lugubrious air. I knew not what to think of either the abbé’s reason or my own. Had it not been for a feeling of _mauvaise honte_, I would have asked for other lodgings and I really experienced a sensation of anger, when I saw Baptiste enter with the accursed waiter, the basket, the three loaves and all the absurd accompaniments of the previous evening. “What does this mean?” said I testily. “Am I hungry? Haven’t I just left the table?” “Indeed, Monsieur,” he replied, “I think it is very odd. It was Mademoiselle Zéphyrine who ordered me to bring it to you. It was of no use for me to tell her that you were in the habit of passing your nights in sleeping, and not in eating, she answered laughingly: “Take it all the same, it is a custom we have always observed. It will not annoy your master and you will see that he will be pleased to have you leave it in his room.” “Very well, _mon ami_, do me the favor of carrying it back, without saying anything about it in the servant’s hall. I need my table to write upon.” Baptiste obeyed. I locked myself in, and retired, after having written to my father. I confess that I slept splendidly and dreamed of but one lady, Madame d’Ionis. The next day, the dowager assailed me anew with questions. I was so rude as to declare that I had dreamed nothing worth mentioning. The good lady was greatly disappointed. “I am sure,” said she to Zéphyrine, “that you did not put the ladies’ supper in M. Nivières’ room?” “Pardon me, madame,” replied Zéphyrine, looking at me reproachfully. Madame d’Ionis seemed also to say with her eyes, that I was disobliging. The abbé exclaimed ingenuously: “It is strange; these things then happen only to me?”