No, he knocked a second time.
"Who is it?"
"........"
"Toi!"
"She addresses me so familiarly, it is frightful."
"........"
"Yours forever!"
"Again! After all, I please her. It is less vile than indifference."
Now, whisperings reached him, interrupted by the opening and closing of doors. He had the sensation of conversations of nuns coming through a wooden partition. This sordid place had the mysteries of a convent; the approach of women and their movements always give man similar impressions, different though the surroundings be. She was debating with somebody; at last the bolt was unfastened, the key turned: another wait, but shorter, in a dark antechamber: the sounds of a second outside door, of steps descending the stairs: he had left.
She was dressed, a hat on her head, and gloved.