"You will think of this and of her when the next temptation comes."
"Oh, it will come right enough; and I shan't resist it. I can't. Good-bye. I like you yet. I—I wish I'd known you before."
And with that and a sigh and a smile, he lifted his hat and left me.
CHAPTER IX
I COME TO TERMS WITH MADAME
My interview with Karl led to a very disquieting discovery. I sat for some time thinking about it—and my thoughts increased rather than diminished my uneasiness.
To use a very expressive vulgarism one often hears at home, I began to fear that I "had run up against a snag." In other words, I had misunderstood the real nature of my feelings for Karl; and that miscalculation might cost me dear.
It was true that when I had seen him at Madame d'Artelle's I had hated him cordially; but the reason was clear to me now. It was not my pride that he had hurt in not recognizing me. It was my anger that he had stirred—that he should have forgotten me so completely. It looked so much like the due corollary of his old conduct that I had taken fire.
And now I found he had not forgotten me at all; and knew that I had won my little victory over him because he remembered me so well.