The Champion threw her a kiss. I felt my face getting red with shame. We returned to the Hotel, exchanging bitter remarks.
Our apartment happened to be above the arch of the main door, where motor-cars kept passing and re-passing until morning, which made me dream of misfortunes and absurdities. My awakening brought me real ones. Emma was gone!
In my astonishment, I endeavored to find plausible reasons for her absence.
I rang for the waiter. He came, and handed me this letter, which I have preserved, and whose criss-crossed paper, bespattered with blots and blobs of ink, I now pin on to my piece of white paper:
“Dear Nick,
“Pardon me for the pain I am causing you, but it is better that we should part. I found again yesterday, my first lover Alcide, the man I fought with Léonie about. He is the handsome fellow who won the wrestling-match yesterday. I am going off with him. I could not give up that kind of life, except for the sort of money which Lerne promised me. I should have made you unhappy, and should have been unfaithful to you. All the rest amounts to nothing. I want a real man. It is not your fault, and so I hope this will not cause you any pain. Adieu for life.
“Emma Bourdichet.”
In the presence of so categorical an intimation, couched in jargon almost as barbarous as that of the Law Courts, I could only bow to fate. Moreover, were not those sentiments which Emma was expressing, exactly those which had charmed me in her? Had I not loved in her just that thirst for pleasure which was the cause of her bewitching beauty, and the cause of her infidelity?
I had the energy and wisdom to defer the rest of my reflections until the morrow. They might have brought on weakness in action.
I inquired about the first train for Paris, and sent for a mechanic to undertake to dispatch my 80 h. p. car, or, if you prefer to call it, the Klotz-automobile, to me.
I was soon informed of the man’s arrival. Together we went to the garage.
The car had disappeared!