Sister Anne (Novels of Paul de Kock, Volume X)

Copyright 1903 by G. Barrie & Sons
A PREMEDITATED COLLISION ———
Frédéric looked up and recognized Dubourg; he was on the point of laughing outright, when his friend forestalled him by running toward him, exclaiming:
I cannot be mistaken! What a fortunate meeting! It surely is Monsieur Frédéric de Montreville!
THE JEFFERSON PRESS BOSTON NEW YORK
Copyrighted, 1903-1904, by G. B. & Sons.



The theatres had long since dismissed their audiences, the shops were closed, and the cafés were closing. Passers-by were becoming more and more infrequent, the cabs moved more rapidly, the street lights were burning, and the gas in the houses was disappearing; the streets of Paris, like the inhabitants thereof, were about to enjoy their brief hour of repose.
But repose, like fine weather, is never universal: when we are enjoying it in Paris, it may be that people are fighting in some other quarter of the globe; and while we are revelling in mild and delicious weather, within a hundred leagues of us a tornado may be destroying the crops, or a tempest submerging ships. Since peace and fine weather cannot be universal, let us try to make the most of them while they are in our possession, and let us not worry as to what sort of weather our neighbors are having.
A gentleman, who presumably had no desire to sleep, was walking through the streets of Paris, which had become almost silent. For more than an hour, he had been walking on the boulevards, from Rue du Temple to Rue Poissonnière; occasionally, without any very clear idea as to where he was going, he strayed into the faubourgs; but he soon stopped, looked about him, muttered between his teeth: What the devil am I doing here? and returned to the boulevards.