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106 smiling, seating herself bespoke good breeding, a peaceful, happy life without hasty acts of indiscretion, without degrading remorse. Her hat, her cloak, her dress, her whole appearance was of a refined and charming elegance, meant for the enjoyment of just one, for the cheerfulness of a secluded house, closed to the seekers of unclean spoils. . . . And her eyes, radiating a perfectly legitimate tenderness, her eyes from which shone such candor, so much sincerity, which seemed to have no knowledge of lies, her eyes more beautiful than the lakes haunted by the moon! . ..

"Is Charles all right?" Lirat had asked.

Charles? . . . Her husband, to be sure! . . . And naively I pictured to myself a respectable interior of a room, with jolly children playing on the carpet, a family lamp, grouping kind and simple beings around its gentle shimmer; a chaste bed, protected by a crucifix and a hallowed branch of boxtree! . . . Then suddenly, crashing into this peace, the bullhead from the Bouffes, the croupier of the gambling club, and Charles Malterre who broke Lirat's lounge by rolling on it, while crying in rage! . . . I conjured the image of the comedian a pallid face, wrinkled, glabrous, with impudent bloodshot eyes, with sensual lips, wearing an open collar, a pink cravat, a low-plaited short jacket!

I was unnerved and irritated. . . . What did it matter to me, after all? Did the life of this woman concern me, was it related to me in any way? . . . Was it my business to interest myself in the fate of women whom chance threw in my path? . . . I don't care what she is, this Mile. Juliette Roux! . . . She is neither my sister nor my fiancee, nor my friend; there is not a single bond of kinship between us. . . . If I had seen her yesterday walking on the street, like one of the thousands of persons whom one brushes against