He smiled in an embarrassed way. "If you will take ten francs, it is all I have left."
She murmured, with the disinterestedness of a courtesan gratifying a fancy: "What you please, my lady; I only want you."
And lifting her charming eyes towards the young man's moustache, she took his arm and leant lovingly upon it.
"Let us go and have a grenadine first of all," she remarked. "And then we will take a stroll together. I should like to go to the opera like this, with you, to show you off. And we will go home early, eh?"
He lay late at this girl's place. It was broad day when he left, and the notion occurred to him to buy the Vie Francaise. He opened the paper with feverish hand. His article was not there, and he stood on the footpath, anxiously running his eye down the printed columns with the hope of at length finding what he was in search of. A weight suddenly oppressed his heart, for after the fatigue of a night of love, this vexation came upon him with the weight of a disaster.
He reached home and went to sleep in his clothes on the bed.
Entering the office some hours later, he went on to see Monsieur Walter.
"I was surprised at not seeing my second article on Algeria in the paper this morning, sir," said he.
The manager raised his head, and replied in a dry tone: "I gave it to your friend Forestier, and asked him to read it through. He did not think it up to the mark; you must rewrite it."