Cook’s office and Chirac helping her into the carriage.  Where was he?  Why had he brought her to this impossible abode?  What did he mean by such conduct?  But could he have acted otherwise?  He had done the one thing that he could do. ...  Chance! ...  Chance!  And why an impossible abode?  Was one place more impossible than another?  All this came of running away from home with Gerald.  It was remarkable that she seldom thought of Gerald.  He had vanished from her life as he had come into it—­madly, preposterously.  She wondered what the next stage in her career would be.  She certainly could not forecast it.  Perhaps Gerald was starving, or in prison ...  Bah!  That exclamation expressed her appalling disdain of Gerald and of the Sophia who had once deemed him the paragon of men.  Bah!

A carriage stopping in front of the house awakened her from her meditation.  Madame Foucault and a man very much younger than Madame Foucault got out of it.  Sophia fled.  After all, this prying into other people’s rooms was quite inexcusable.  She dropped on to her own bed and picked up a book, in case Madame Foucault should come in.

III

In the evening, just after night had fallen, Sophia on the bed heard the sound of raised and acrimonious voices in Madame Foucault’s room.  Nothing except dinner had happened since the arrival of Madame Foucault and the young man.  These two had evidently dined informally in the bedroom on a dish or so prepared by Madame Foucault, who had herself served Sophia with her invalid’s repast.  The odours of cookery still hung in the air.

The noise of virulent discussion increased and continued, and then Sophia could hear sobbing, broken by short and fierce phrases from the man.  Then the door of the bedroom opened brusquely.  “J’en ai soupe!” exclaimed the man, in tones of angry disgust.  “Laisse-moi, je te prie!” And then a soft muffled sound, as of a struggle, a quick step, and the very violent banging of the front door.  After that there was a noticeable silence, save for the regular sobbing.  Sophia wondered when it would cease, that monotonous sobbing.

“What is the matter?” she called out from her bed.

The sobbing grew louder, like the sobbing of a child who has detected an awakening of sympathy and instinctively begins to practise upon it.  In the end Sophia arose and put on the peignoir which she had almost determined never to wear again.  The broad corridor was lighted by a small, smelling oil-lamp with a crimson globe.  That soft, transforming radiance seemed to paint the whole corridor with voluptuous luxury:  so much so that it was impossible to believe that the smell came from the lamp.  Under the lamp lay Madame Foucault on the floor, a shapeless mass of lace, frilled linen, and corset; her light brown hair was loose and spread about the floor.  At the first glance, the creature abandoned to grief made a romantic