"Oh! my dear friend, I am not anxious to stand here in the street any longer. What do we look like—talking like this on a doorstep?"
"Then let me come up a moment."
"No; I tell you that I am going to bed!"
"There's something wrong, Fanny. This isn't natural. You're not the same with me that you were two days ago."
"You can tell me all that to-morrow. Good-night!"
"Very well, until to-morrow, then, madame! I trust that you will be visible?"
"Mon Dieu! monsieur, I am always visible when I am not sick. But don't come too early; for I don't rise with the dawn."
Fanny knocked, and the door opened. She hurried in and closed the door on Gustave, who remained in the street, poor fellow, unable to make up his mind to leave his fair one's abode. He did not know what to believe. He asked himself if he had not done wrong to reproach Fanny; she had been to see one of her friends, and had returned alone: there was no great harm in that. And yet, he was ill at ease, he suffered; his heart told him that something was wrong, and that his love was not the same to him as before.
At last, after pacing back and forth in front of Fanny's door for nearly an hour, gazing at those of her windows which were lighted, he decided to go away when the lights went out.
"I wish to-morrow were here," he thought.