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He did not undress, but walked up and down with his regular tread

over the resounding parquet of the dining-room, where one lamp

was burning, over the carpet of the dark drawing-room, in which

the light was reflected on the big new portrait of himself

hanging over the sofa, and across her boudoir, where two candles

burned, lighting up the portraits of her parents and woman

friends, and the pretty knick-knacks of her writing-table, that

he knew so well. He walked across her boudoir to the bedroom

door, and turned back again. At each turn in his walk, especially

at the parquet of the lighted dining-room, he halted and said to

himself, "Yes, this I must decide and put a stop to; I must

express my view of it and my decision." And he turned back again.

"But express what-what decision?" he said to himself in the

drawing-room, and he found no reply. "But after all," he asked

himself before turning into the boudoir, "what has occurred?

Nothing. She was talking a long while with him.