JOSEPH and I had been getting everything ready for my departure for about an hour, when there was a violent ringing at my door.

'Should I answer it?' said Joseph.

'Yes, ' I told him, wondering who could be calling so late, and not daring to hope it was Marguerite.

'Sir, ' said Joseph when he returned, 'there are two ladies?

'It's us, Armand, ' cried a voice which I recognized as belonging to Prudence.

I emerged from my bedroom.

Prudence was standing and gazing about her at the few curios dotted around my drawing-room; Marguerite was sitting on the sofa, occupied by her thoughts.

When I entered, I went to her, knelt before her, took both her hands and, in a voice touched with emotion, I said:

'Forgive me.'

She kissed me on the brow and said:

'That's the third time I've forgiven you.'

'I was going to go away tomorrow.'

'How can my visit change your mind? I haven't come here to stop you leaving Paris. I came because I haven't had time all day to reply to your letter, and I didn't want to leave you with the impression that I was cross with you. Even so, Prudence didn't want me to come: she said I might be in your way.'

'You! In my way, Marguerite! But how?'

'Why, you could have had a woman here, ' answered Prudence, 'and it wouldn't have been very funny for her to see another two turning up.'

While Prudence was making this remark, Marguerite watched me closely.

'My dear Prudence, ' I replied, 'you're talking nonsense.'

'You've got a very nice apartment, ' answered Prudence. 'Mind if I take a look at the bedroom?'

'Not at all.'

Prudence went off into my bedroom, not so much to see inside as to cover up her unfortunate remark and to leave Marguerite and me alone together.

'Why did you bring Prudence with you?' I said.

'Because she was with me at the theatre, and because I wanted to have someone to see me home when I left here.'

'Couldn't I have done it?'

'Yes. But apart from the fact that I didn't want to disturb you, I was quite certain that when you got to my door you would ask if you could come up and, since I couldn't let you, I didn't want you to go away feeling you had any right to blame me for refusing you anything.'

'And why couldn't you let me come up?'

'Because I'm being watched very closely, and because the least hint of suspicion could do me a great deal of harm.'

'Is that the only reason?'

'If there was another, I would tell you what it was; we've got past the stage of having secrets from each other.'

'Listen, Marguerite, I'm not going to make any bones about what I want to say to you. Tell me, do you love me a little?'

'A great deal.'

'Then why did you deceive me?'

'My dear, if I were the Duchess of This or That, if I had two hundred thousand livers a year, if I were your mistress and had another lover besides you, then you'd have every right to ask why I deceive you. But I am Mademoiselle Marguerite Gautier, I have debts of forty thousand and not a penny behind me, and I spend a hundred thousand francs a year: your question is out of order and my answer irrelevant.'

'You're quite right, ' I said, letting my head fall on to Marguerite's knees, 'but I do love you, to distraction.'

'Well, my dear, you should have loved me a little less or understood me a little better. Your letter hurt me very deeply. If I'd been free to choose, then in the first place I would never have seen the Count the day before yesterday, or, if I had, I would have come to beg you for the forgiveness which you asked of me a few moments ago and, from that moment on, I would have had no other lover but you. There was a moment when I thought I could indulge myself and be really happy for those six months. You would have none of it; you just had to know how I was going to manage it ?good heavens! it was easy enough to guess. The sacrifice I was going to have to make if it was to be possible, was much greater than you think. I could have told you: "I need twenty thousand francs." You were in love with me, you would have raised it somehow, though there was a risk that one day you'd be sorry you'd done so and blame me. I chose to owe you nothing; you didn't understand my delicacy, for delicacy it is. Girls of my sort, at least those of us who still have some feelings left, take words and things further and deeper than other women. I repeat: coming from Marguerite Gautier, the means with she found of repaying her debts without asking you for the money it took, was an act of great delicacy of which you should now take advantage without another word. If you met me today for the first time, you'd be only too delighted with the promises I'd make you, and you wouldn't ask questions about what I did the day before yesterday. Sometimes, we have no choice but to buy gratifications for the soul at some cost to the body, and it hurts all the more when those gratifications subsequently elude us.'

I heard and saw Marguerite with admiration. When I reflected that this marvellous creature, whose feet I once had longed to kiss, should consent to give me a place in her thoughts and a role in her life, and when I thought that I was still not content with what she was giving me, I asked myself whether man's desire has any limits at all if, though satisfied as promptly as mine had been, it can still aspire to something more.

'It's true, ' she went on, 'we creatures of chance have weird desires and unimaginable passions. Sometimes we give ourselves for one thing, sometimes for another. There are men who could ruin themselves and get nowhere with us; there are others who can have us for a bunch of flowers. Our hearts are capricious: it's their only diversion and their only excuse. I gave myself to you more quickly than I ever did to another man, I ............