around his neck and hung there, kissing him hungrily. Then sinking back and putting her arms under the cover, she said, "The deed is done. Now will you love me any better?"
He did not have the heart to answer. Ah yes, his disillusion was complete. The satiety following justified his lack of appetite preceding. She revolted him, horrified him. Was it possible to have so desired a woman, only to come to—that? He had idealized her in his transports, he had dreamed in her eyes—he knew not what! He had wished to exalt himself with her, to rise higher than the delirious ravenings of the senses, to soar out of the world into joys supernal and unexplored. And his dream had been shattered. He remained fettered to earth. Was there no means of escaping out of one's self, out of earthly limitations, and attaining an upper ether where the soul, ravished, would glory in its giddy flight?
Ah, the lesson was hard and decisive. For having one time hoped so much, what regrets, what a tumble! Decidedly, Reality does not pardon him who despises her; she avenges herself by shattering the dream and trampling it and casting the fragments into a cesspool.
"Don't be vexed, dear, because it is taking me so long," said Mme. Chantelouve behind the curtain.
He thought crudely, "I wish you would get to hell out of here," and aloud he asked politely if she had need of his services.
"She was so mysterious, so enticing," he resumed to himself. "Her eyes, remote, deep as space, and reflecting cemeteries and festivals at the same time. And she has shown herself up for all she is, within an hour. I have seen a new Hyacinthe, talking like a silly little milliner in heat. All the nastinesses of women unite in her to exasperate me."
After a thoughtful silence he concluded, "I must be young indeed to have lost my head the way I did."
As if echoing his thought, Mme. Chantelouve, coming out through the portière, laughed nervously and said, "A
woman of my age doing a mad thing like that!" She looked at him, and though he forced a smile she understood.
"You will sleep tonight," she said, sadly, alluding to Durtal's former complaints of sleeplessness on her account.