open with Kahn and his clients standing just inside
it. And what could have possessed so seemly a woman
to pretend to be gazing at Kahn's front window,
so that she might overhear what was said, and
know the precise extent of the order? What possessed
the soft-voiced Anatole Kahn to raise that soft voice
as he ran through the items, loudly checking off first
this purchase, then that, can undoubtedly only have
been the devil. For hearing him Marie went red and
then white as she clutched at her shabby old shopping
basket, while the lump that rose in her throat was so
large that just for a moment she could not swallow.
Many others now patronized Kahn, as she knew, yet
somehow, to-day, this young man's desertion must
loom larger than all that had gone before —it is
frequently less the event than the moment. Turning
quickly she hurried along the quay, but not before
Guillaume had looked up and seen her, and not before
Guillaume had flushed, to the eyes: CI will not be a
minute;5 he whispered to Clotilde, cy°u wa^ here.5
And off he dashed in pursuit, the kind-hearted, tact-
less, blundering creature,
Had Guillaume been just a little less kindly . . .
but no, he must speak, must try to explain and thus
only succeed in wounding more deeply. Having
come up with Marie he stammered and blushed like
a schoolboy caught out in some grave misdemeanour:
'Listen ... I want you to know how it is — the time
was so short before our wedding; the delay in getting
a suitable apartment . . . and then Clotilde . . .
she is young and she loves pretty things; ah, no, no,
not that, it was really the time, otherwise I would
surely have wished papa Jouse . . . but the time was
so short. You do understand. . . .?*
Marie answered: 'I will tell Jouse what you have
said.3 And still clutching her shopping basket she
left him.
297