“Yes, I do not leave until evening!”
When he had left her she remained lost in the sadness of her own useless thoughts for some moments; then she put on a long black cloak, a veil which hid her features, and went out in the street, saying nothing to the two servants who traveled with her or to the servant of the hotel. She went out into the street and crossed the Seine by the bridge of Henri Quatre, her elegance of form and her height making some of the passers-by pause and stare, wondering who she could be, alone, on foot, and so closely veiled. One man followed and accosted her, but he did not dare persevere.
She went straight on her way to the Rue de Rivoli, for she had known Paris well, and loved it as we love a place which has been the seat of our happiness. It was near the end of a grey and chilly day; the lights were glittering everywhere, and the animation of a great and popular thoroughfare was at its height. The noise of traffic and the haste of crowds made her ears ache with sound, so used as she now was to the absolute silence of her Swabian solitude; a silence only broken by the rush of wind or water. She approached a very large and stately building which looked like a palace blent with a prison; it was the French house of business of the great Paris and Berlin financiers, Vanderlin et Cie.
She walked toward it and past it, very slowly, whilst its electric lamps shed their rays upon her.
She passed it and turned, and passed it and turned again, and as often as she could do so without attracting attention from the throngs or from the police. There was a mingling of daylight and lamplight; above-head cumuli clouds were driven before a north wind. She waited on a mere chance; the chance of seeing one whom she had not seen for eight years pass out of a small private door to his carriage. She knew his hours, his habits; probably, she thought, they had not changed.
She was rewarded, if it could be called reward.
As she passed the façade for the eighth time, and those on guard before the building began to watch her suspiciously, she saw a tall man come out of that private doorway and cross the pavement to a coupé waiting by the curbstone. In a moment he had entered it; the door had closed on him, the horses had started down the Rue de Rivoli.
She had seen the man who had repudiated and dishonored her; the only man she had ever loved; the father of her dead boy.
“Does he ever remember?” she wondered as she turned away, and was lost amongst the crowds in the falling night.