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130 window. She looked into it to see if it was in proper order. She was still smiling—she seemed always to be smiling—but she gave no sign of seeing me, and I felt that if there had been a dozen men standing there, she would have worn that same sweetly unconscious mask. She glanced about her a moment, and then, extending a plump little white hand, she gave a touch to the back hair of one of the waxen ladies—the right-hand one, the blond.

A couple of hours later, rising from breakfast, I repaired to my little balcony, from which post of observation I instantly espied a figure stationed at the hairdresser's window. If I had not recognized it otherwise, the absorbed, contemplative droop of its head would at once have proved it to be Sanguinetti. "Why does he not go inside?" I asked myself. "He can't look at her properly out there." At this conclusion he appeared himself to have arrived, for he suddenly straightened himself up and entered the establishment. He remained within a long time. I grew tired of waiting for him to reappear, and went back to my armchair to finish reading the Débats. I had just accomplished this somewhat arduous feat when I heard the lame tinkle of my door-bell, a few moments after which Sanguinetti was ushered in.

He really looked love-sick: he was pale and