But at that same moment it seemed to him as though some one had approached and taken up a stand close behind him ... a warm current emanated thence....

He glanced round....  It was she!

He recognised her immediately, although a thick, dark-blue veil concealed her features.  He instantly sprang from the bench, and remained standing there, unable to utter a word.  She also maintained silence.  He felt greatly agitated ... but her agitation was as great as his:  Aratoff could not help seeing even through the veil how deadly pale she grew.  But she was the first to speak.

“Thank you,” she began in a broken voice, “thank you for coming.  I did not hope....”  She turned away slightly and walked along the boulevard.  Aratoff followed her.

“Perhaps you condemn me,” she went on, without turning her head.—­“As a matter of fact, my action is very strange....  But I have heard a great deal about you ... but no!  I ... that was not the cause....  If you only knew....  I wanted to say so much to you, my God!...  But how am I to do it?...  How am I to do it!”

Aratoff walked by her side, but a little in the rear.  He did not see her face; he saw only her hat and a part of her veil ... and her long, threadbare cloak.  All his vexation against her and against himself suddenly returned to him; all the absurdity, all the awkwardness of this tryst, of these explanations between utter strangers, on a public boulevard, suddenly presented itself to him.

“I have come hither at your behest,” he began in his turn, “I have come, my dear madame” (her shoulders quivered softly, she turned into a side path, and he followed her), “merely for the sake of having an explanation, of learning in consequence of what strange misunderstanding you were pleased to appeal to me, a stranger to you, who ... who only guessed, as you expressed it in your letter, that it was precisely you who had written to him ... because he guessed that you had tried, in the course of that literary morning to show him too much ... too much obvious attention.”

Aratoff uttered the whole of this little speech in the same resonant but firm voice in which men who are still very young answer at examinations on questions for which they are well prepared....  He was indignant; he was angry....  And that wrath had loosed his tongue which was not very fluent on ordinary occasions.

She continued to advance along the path with somewhat lagging steps....  Aratoff followed her as before, and as before saw only her little old mantilla and her small hat, which was not quite new either.  His vanity suffered at the thought that she must now be thinking:  “All I had to do was to make a sign, and he immediately hastened to me!”

Aratoff lapsed into silence ... he expected that she would reply to him; but she did not utter a word.

“I am ready to listen to you,” he began again, “and I shall even be very glad if I can be of service to you in any way ... although, I must confess, nevertheless, that I find it astonishing ... that considering my isolated life....”