"Ah! my poor friend, will you never understand me, then?" She said loud: "But we must end.... It is because I have some modesty in baring myself in this way.... After all.... No, enough for to-day ... another time .... Please leave me, now, if you wish to please me ... without questions ... and without fear ... you will come to-morrow. Good-by, my friend." CHAPTER XXII THE SIMONIAC "La malle bouche, elle a raté si traistre Qu'elle a baisé et vendu nostre maistre." Charles de la Huetrie, _Contreblason de la Bouche_. Hubert had no desire whatever to think, but it is not given to all persons to be able to regulate cerebral activity and to dismiss the serious affairs until the morrow. Neither the reading of a naturalistic novel, nor meditation upon the most abtruse propositions and scholia of the contemporary thinkers, nor the contemplation of the eternal verities, prevented him from bewailing his recent foolish behavior. Ah! how well he judged things from a distance, how well he saw _what he should have done_. No one had to a higher degree his presence of mind at the foot of the staircase. Immediate analysis was always slightly confused and did not force any precise conclusions. Without doubt, it was always three or four minutes after the occasion had passed that he was able to unravel the thoughts and the mental reservations of his partner, and by the forth minute he already knew _what he should have done_ at the first second, but he never knew it so pertinently as after a night's sleep. No disturbance of his heart had ever prevented him from sleeping; he thanked heaven for having granted him lucid mornings. The more he thought, this morning, the more the moving sands of indecision shifted. Having taken an awkward step, he had seen how pernicious action had proved to him; to wait was sterile: it is like the sower of pebbles who, pausing along the fields in spring, is astonished not to see any germination. "Well," thought Hubert, "one cannot know, everything happens and the absurd especially. I should be pleased if some miracle would occur in my favor. We shall see this evening, and," he added, smiling at himself, "the following days." Impatient for the night, and fearing the surliness of the hours, he went out in search of casual diversion.