her, swear at her, strike her, say to her plainly, “I have had enough of it, you worry my life out.” But he observed some circumspection on account of the Vie Francaise , and strove by dint of coolness, harshness, tempered by attention, and even rude words at times, to make her understand that there must be an end to it. She strove, above all, to devise schemes to allure him to a meeting in the Rue de Constantinople, and he was in a perpetual state of alarm lest the two women should find themselves some day face to face at the door.
His affection for Madame de Marelle had, on the contrary, augmented during the summer. He called her his “young rascal,” and she certainly charmed him. Their two natures had kindred links; they were both members of the adventurous race of vagabonds, those vagabonds in society who so strongly resemble, without being aware of it, the vagabonds of the highways. They had had a summer of delightful lovemaking, a summer of students on the spree, bolting off to lunch or dine at Argenteuil, Bougival, Maisons, or Poissy, and passing hours in a boat gathering flowers from the bank. She adored the fried fish served on the banks of the Seine, the stewed rabbits, the arbors in the tavern gardens, and the shouts of the boating men. He liked to start off with her on a bright day on a suburban line, and traverse the ugly environs of Paris, sprouting with tradesmen’s hideous boxes, talking lively nonsense. And when he had to return to dine at Madame Walter’s he hated the eager old mistress from the mere recollection of the young one whom he had left, and who had ravished his desires and harvested his ardor among the grass by the water side.
He had fancied himself at length pretty well rid of Madame Walter, to whom he had expressed, in a plain and almost brutal fashion, his intentions of breaking off with her, when he received at the office of the paper the telegram summoning him to meet her at two o’clock at the Rue de Constantinople. He reread it as he walked along, “Must see you today. Most important. Expect me two o’clock, Rue de Constantinople. Can render you a great service. Till death.—Virginie.”