In a deserted spot, along the wooden balustrade, and as the first gas light flickered in a café, he was accosted by a young man who passed as a poet, perhaps because of the rare beauty of his face.
"How singular! You are alone, yet one would swear that an invisible person accompanied you."
"I am now alone, my dear Sanglade."
Sixtine, in fact, had just disappeared from Entragues sight and Sanglade had the impression of having awkwardly interrupted a tête-à-tête, an impression that was quite metaphorical, for with an air of bantering timidity, he added:
"You are seeking rhymes. I will give you some, I have them all at my command. Without this gift, I would not be a poet."
"Yes, without this you would be a poet."
"In prose, perhaps," answered Sanglade, "but in verse?"
Entragues purposely let him run on, having no mind for esthetic tournaments. They went up the boulevard. At the Luxembourg, Sanglade, tired of discoursing in monologue, took advantage of a passing friend and returned. Entragues made for a quiet café, protected with carpets, where his horror of sound could readily be satisfied.
Since his return, save for a brief interview on the first morning, he had been able to abstract Sixtine from his immediate thoughts. It was with a perfect coldness that he had recopied into good French his brief travel notes where, towards the end, the name of this woman, hardly known, recurred with each verse, like an amen. But, and here he recognized the occult power of words, the material transcription of those syllables had acted violently on his imagination. He had lived whole hours with her, and now that the mystic power of the vision was spent, he still thought of the absent one.
"She must have gone to Bagnoles for one of those imaginary illnesses which women never think of treating save in their periods of boredom. Restless or bored: she had these two states in almost equal doses. Then if her head is troubled with love, she will not experience it until the time when one questions oneself: uncertain questions, uncertain answers! And boredom? To explain it, you must admit that the advance or recoil of this dawning caprice has nothing to do with her will and that she may be unconscious of her own sentiment. That is it: she loves, therefore the uneasiness; but she does not know it, therefore the ennui. It is necessary to note this. Could she have returned?"