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“ ‘Think of any answer you like,’ he said calmly and sensitively, as if he didn’t wish to bruise me with any accusation or disdain, but wanted me merely to consider this literally ‘I can think of many Think of the one you need and believe it It’s as likely as any other I shall give you the real reason for what I did, which is the least true: I was leaving Paris The theater belonged to ed them’

“ ‘But hat you knew…’

“ ‘I told you, it was the actual reason and it was the least true,’ he said patiently

“ ‘Would you destroy me as easily as you let them be destroyed?’ I demanded

“ ‘Why should I?’ he asked

“ ‘My God,’ I whispered

“ ‘You’re ed,’ he said ‘But in a way, you are much the same’

“I walked on for a while and then, before the entrance to the Louvre, I stopped At first it seemed to ht and the thin rain But then I thought I saw a faint lightthe treasures I envied hihts on hiet to him, how take his life and his lantern and his keys The plan was confusion I was incapable of plans I had made only one real plan in my life, and it was finished

“And then finally I surrendered I turned to Arain and let my eyes penetrate his eyes, and let him draw close to me as if he meant to make me his victim, and I bowed my head and felt his fir suddenly and keenly Claudia’s words, ere very nearly her last words — that admission that she knew that I could love Armand because I had been able to love even her — those words struckthan she could have guessed

“ ‘Yes,’ I said softly to hio so far as to love each other, you and I And who else would show us a particle of love, a particle of co us as we know each other, could do anything but destroy us? Yet we can love each other’

“And for a longnearer, his head gradually inclining to one side, his lips parted as if he ently to confess he didn’t understand

“But I wasn’t thinking of him anyht of nothing My mind had no shape I saw that the rain had stopped I saw that the air was clear and cold That the street was luminous And I wanted to enter the Louvre I forht help me do as necessary to have the Louvre till dawn

“He thought it a very simple request He said only he wondered why I had waited so long”

“We left Paris very soon after that I told Armand that I wanted to return to the Mediterranean — not to Greece, as I had so long dreaypt I wanted to see the desert there and, raves of the kings I wanted to raves than do scholars, and I wanted to go down into the graves yet unopened and see the kings as they were buried, see those furnishings and works of art stored with thes on their walls Ar And we took leave of Paris early one evening by carriage without the slightest hint of ceremony

“I had done one thing which I should note I had gone back to my rooms in the Hotel Saint-Gabriel It was s of Claudia and Madeleine and put theraves prepared for them in the cemetery of Montmartre I did not do this I stayed a short while in the rooht by the staff, so that it seeht return at any ti lay with her bundles of thread on a chair-side table I looked at that and at everything else, and less So I left