Yves is now in bed and sleeping under our roof.
Sleep has come to him sooner than to me to-night; for somehow I fancy I had seen long glances exchanged between him and Chrysanthème.
I have left this little creature in his hands like a toy, and I begin to fear lest I should have thrown some perturbation in his mind. I do not trouble my head about this little Japanese girl. But Yves,—it would be decidedly wrong on his part, and would greatly diminish my faith in him.
We hear the rain falling on our old roof; the cicalas are mute; odors of wet earth reach us from the gardens and the mountain. I feel terribly dreary in this room to-night; the noise of the little pipe irritates me more than usual, and as Chrysanthème crouches in front of her smoking-box, I suddenly discover in her an air of low breeding, in the very worst sense of the word.
I should hate her, my mousmé, if she were to entice Yves into committing a fault,—a fault which I should perhaps never be able to forgive.
August 12th.
The Y—— and Sikou-San couple were divorced yesterday. The Charles N—— and Campanule household is getting on very badly. They have had some annoyance with those prying, grinding, insupportable little men, dressed up in suits of gray, who are called police agents and who by threatening their landlord, have had them turned out of their house—under the obsequious amiability of this people, there lurks a secret hatred towards us Europeans—they are therefore obliged to accept their mother-in-law's hospitality, a very painful position. And then Charles N—— fancies his wife is faithless. It is hardly possible, however, for us to deceive ourselves: these would-be maidens, to whom M. Kangourou has introduced us, are young people who have already had in their lives one, or perhaps more than one, adventure; it is therefore only natural that we should have our suspicions.
The Z—— and Touki-San couple jog on, quarreling all the time.