de Sévigné. That is what is going to prevent this from being our last meeting. One must console oneself with the reflection that complicated affairs are rarely settled in a day. Just look how long they took over the Congress of Vienna.” “But I could call for it without disturbing you,” I said obligingly. “Will you hold your tongue, you little fool,” he replied with anger, “and not give yourself the grotesque appearance of regarding as a small matter the honour of being probably (I do not say certainly, for it will perhaps be one of my servants who hands you the volumes) received by me.” Then, regaining possession of himself: “I do not wish to part from you on these words. No dissonance, before the eternal silence of the dominant.” It was for his own nerves that he seemed to dread an immediate return home after harsh words of dissension. “You would not care to come to the Bois?” he addressed me in a tone not so much interrogative as affirmative, and that not, as it seemed to me, because he did not wish to make me the offer but because he was afraid that his self-esteem might meet with a refusal.

M.