For a moment or two Muffat thought of questioning Mme Bron; then he grew afraid lest Nana should get wind of his presence and escape by way of the boulevard.

So he went on the march again and determined to wait till he was turned out at the closing of the gates, an event which had happened on two previous occasions.

The thought of returning home to his solitary bed simply wrung his heart with anguish.

Every time that golden-haired girls and men in dirty linen came out and stared at him he returned to his post in front of the reading room, where, looking in between two advertisements posted on a windowpane, he was always greeted by the same sight.

It was a little old man, sitting stiff and solitary at the vast table and holding a green newspaper in his green hands under the green light of one of the lamps.