“Well?”
“Well, I swear to you that the woman whom I took in my arms that night and kissed on the lips—oh, not for long: a few seconds only, but no matter!—I swear before heaven that she was something more than a grateful mother, something more than a friend yielding to a moment of susceptibility, that she was a woman also, a woman quivering with emotion....” And he continued, with a bitter laugh, “Who ran away next day, never to see me again.”
He was silent once more. Then he whispered:
“Clarisse.... Clarisse.... On the day when I am tired and disappointed and weary of life, I will come to you down there, in your little Arab house . . . in that little white house, Clarisse, where you are waiting for me....”
FOOTNOTES:
[G] See The Confessions of Arsène Lupin. By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.
THE END