“How can one know the things that agitate a mind anxious and mobile, selfish and passionate, desirous to surrender itself, prompt in disengaging itself, liking itself most of all among the beautiful things that it finds in the world?” Brusquely she changed the subject. “And your novel, Monsieur Vence?” “I have reached the last chapter, Madame. My little workingman has been guillotined. He died with that indifference of virgins without desire, who never have felt on their lips the warm taste of life. The journals and the public approve the act of justice which has just been accomplished. But in another garret, another workingman, sober, sad, and a chemist, swears to himself that he will commit an expiatory murder.” He rose and said good-night. She called him back. “Monsieur Vence, you know that I was serious. Bring Choulette to me.” When she went up to her room, her husband was waiting for her, in his red-brown plush robe, with a sort of doge’s cap framing his pale and hollow face. He had an air of gravity. Behind him, by the open door of his workroom, appeared under the lamp a mass of documents bound in blue, a collection of the annual budgets. Before she could reach her room he motioned that he wished to speak to her. “My dear, I can not understand you. You are very inconsequential. It does you a great deal of harm. You intend to leave your home without any reason, without even a pretext. And you wish to run through Europe with whom? With a Bohemian, a drunkard--that man Choulette.” She replied that she should travel with Madame Marmet, in which there could be nothing objectionable. “But you announce your going to everybody, yet you do not even know whether Madame Marmet can accompany you.” “Oh, Madame Marmet will soon pack her boxes. Nothing keeps her in Paris except her dog. She will leave it to you; you may take care of it.” “Does your father know of your project?” It was his last resource to invoke the authority of Montessuy. He knew that his wife feared to displease her father. He insisted: