"My dear sir, I shall shock you, perhaps; but if I had to choose, I should like better to do an immoral thing than a cruel one." A young man, tall, thin, dark, with a long moustache, entered, and bowed with brusque suppleness. "Monsieur Vence, I think that you know Monsieur Le Menil." They had met before at Madame Martin's, and saw each other often at the Fencing Club. The day before they had met at Madame Meillan's. "Madame Meillan's--there's a house where one is bored," said Paul Vence. "Yet Academicians go there," said M. Robert Le Menil. "I do not exaggerate their value, but they are the elite." Madame Martin smiled. "We know, Monsieur Le Menil, that at Madame Meillan's you are preoccupied by the women more than by the Academicians. You escorted Princess Seniavine to the buffet and talked to her about wolves." "What wolves?" "Wolves, and forests blackened by winter. We thought that with so pretty a woman your conversation was rather savage!" Paul Vence rose. "So you permit, Madame, that I should bring my friend Dechartre? He has a great desire to know you, and I hope he will not displease you. There is life in his mind. He is full of ideas." "Oh, I do not ask for so much," Madame Martin said. "People that are natural and show themselves as they are rarely bore me, and sometimes they amuse me." When Paul Vence had gone, Le Menil listened until the noise of footsteps had vanished; then, coming nearer: "To-morrow, at three o'clock? Do you still love me?" He asked her to reply while they were alone. She answered that it was late, that she expected no more visitors, and that no one except her husband would come. He entreated. Then she said: "I shall be free to-morrow all day. Wait for me at three o'clock." He thanked her with a look. Then, placing himself on at the other side of the chimney, he asked who was that Dechartre whom she wished introduced to her. "I do not wish him to be introduced to me. He is to be introduced to me. He is a sculptor." He deplored the fact that she needed to see new faces, adding: "A sculptor? They are usually brutal." "Oh, but this one does so little sculpture! But if it annoys you that I should meet him, I will not do so." "I should be sorry if society took any part of the time you might give to me." "My friend, you can not complain of that. I did not even go to Madame Meillan's yesterday." "You are right to show yourself there as little as possible. It is not a house for you."