"'And you will talk frankly, unconstrainedly, all the same?'
"'Ah, you are too illogical to be elderly and plain,' I demurred. 'You resolve to remain a stranger to me, and I bow to your decision; but, on the other hand, a man makes confidences only to his friends.'
"There was a long pause; and when I heard the voice again, it trembled:
"'Adieu, monsieur.'
"'Adieu, madame,' I said.
"No sooner had she gone than I would have given almost anything to bring her back. For a long while I sat praying that she would ring again. I watched the telephone as if it had been her window, the door of her home—something that could yield her to my view. During the next few days I grudged every minute that I was absent from the room—I took my meals in it. Never had I had the air of working so indefatigably, and in truth I did not write a line, 'I suppose you have begun a new romance?' said my wife. In my soul I feared that I had finished it!"
Noulens sighed; he clasped his hands on his head. The dark hair, the thin, restless fingers were all that I could see of him where I sat. Some seconds passed; I wondered whether there would be time for me to hear the rest before his wife returned.
* * * * *
"In my soul I feared that I had finished it," he repeated. "Extraordinary as it appears, I was in love with a woman I had never seen. Each time that bell sounded, my heart seemed to try to choke me. It had been my grievance, since we had the telephone installed, that we heard nothing of it excepting that we had to make another payment for its use; but now, by a maddening coincidence, everybody that I had ever met took to ringing me up about trifles and agitating me twenty times a day.
"At last, one night—when expectation was almost dead—she called to me again. Oh, but her voice was humble! My friend, it is piteous when we love a woman, to hear her humbled. I longed to take her hands, to fold my arms about her. I abased myself, that she might regain her pride. She heard how I had missed and sorrowed for her; I owned that she was dear to me.