"Go!" The horse started at a slow trot. Madame Chambannes knocked frantically on the glass pane and, without waiting for the carriage to stop, jumped to the pavement. The sound of the cab stopping caused Gerald to turn round. He saw the young woman and paled with uneasiness. Yet, he constrained himself to say with a heavy smile: "What! is it you!..." Zozé pointed to the cab and its open door: "Get in!" she commanded, harshly. "You wish me to get in? What a funny tone of voice you are using!" stammered Gerald, again attempting a smile. "I tell you to get in!" repeated Zozé, herself astounded at her audacity. "Come on, get in!... I am not afraid of anything, neither of people nor of scandal.... I want you to get in!" A band of young working girls going out to lunch looked at them and nudged each other. "Very well!" said Gerald, embarrassed.... "All the same!... you must admit that you have a strange way of...." "Enough! We shall talk by and by." And, while the young count settled himself in the carriage, she told the driver. "Drive where you like!... To the Bois.... Go towards the Bois." They started out. Both were seasoned navigators of Paris, experts in the ways of carriage driving; they pulled down the blinds. Then Zozé cried out: "Well?" Then her energy left her and she burst into tears. "What is the matter?... What is it?... I assure you I do not understand!" Gerald murmured hypocritically, as he stretched out his arm to hold her. She avoided him with a brusque movement. "Do not touch me!... You make me sick.... Do stop your stupid lies.... I saw Germaine.... Do you understand now?" Gerald's silence caused her rage to break out: "How shameful! What an ignominious affair!... With one of my own friends, with the one I loved best! Bah! you are just as worthless!... You are two bandits, two blackguards! It was natural that you should take to each other...." Gerald attempted to come closer. "Come, come, my little Zozé, mon petit Zozo.... Don't cry.... This has no importance at all.... Yes, it is true ... and it is not nice.... But it was even more stupid than wicked.... Look here, if the rules that govern decent society allowed me to speak openly...." "Well, what then?" said Zozé, without repulsing him. "No!" said Gerald. "It would be disgusting.... You yourself could not wish it.... Be sure, nevertheless, that to-day was the first time and that, at once, on leaving ... do you know what I was saying to myself just now when you jumped on me?... I was telling myself that it was the first and also the last time...." "Will you swear it to me?" asked Zozé, with a passion that gave her face, which was convulsed with rage, even a stranger look. "I do!" Gerald replied.