On this September evening in question I had been dining in one of those exiguous Cafés in the Boulevard S. Michel, which cater largely for students of the Sorbonne and their little chère-amies. I have never much to say against the custom of such connexions, save for the hardship they entail upon certain of the girls—mostly shop or factory hands—when a necessary period is put to them. In other respects they serve to solve, and to solve cleanly, a problem which English prudery cannot bring itself to face. Yet better surely the informal comrade than the bagnio; and, after all, those who consent accept with their eyes open, and with a full knowledge of the impermanent nature of the relations.
I returned to the flat about eight o’clock, to find the wife of the Concierge already peering for me behind the closed iron gates of the lodge, which led out of a courtyard reached through an archway.
“Why closed?” I said.
“Ah!” returned Madame Crussol, snapping viciously at the lock: “Why indeed, but to oblige the laudable sister of a good-for-nothing, who is never so little to be found as when respectability calls. Likely this is one of your pranks, for which you are to be taken to task. You will find Madame upstairs.”
She swung open the gate, and locked it behind me again as I entered. I accepted the enigma with a laugh, and a little pat on the good wife’s ample shoulder. I am never eager about solving riddles which left alone will unravel of themselves. It is a good rule for ensuring serenity of mind.
As I turned to the stairs, I noticed a figure seated dimly in the porter’s lodge. It was shrouded and obscure, but I believed it was that of a young girl, whose white face, picked out by the lamp-light, blossomed from the shadows with an oddly Rembrandtesque effect. It seemed, as I passed, to be projected in sudden interest or curiosity, and then, like a face seen from a train at night, to vanish instantly.
I found, on entering my principal room, the electric light turned on and the curtains drawn close. Marion, her hands clasped behind her back, was striding restlessly up and down; but, I observed, with a stealthy motion, as though she feared the sound of her own footsteps. She stopped, on the instant of my entrance, and faced on me, her lips compressed. I thought she looked unusually grim, and that her constitutionally dead complexion betrayed a livider pallor.
“At last!” she said. “Shut the door, Felix Dane. I want to speak to you.”
“I have only been dining, Marion. Quite respectably, believe me. Had you any reason for drawing to the curtains this warm night?”
“I never do anything without a reason. I was afraid of being followed and the light betraying me.”