Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/120

As Rodolphe was reading this letter on reaching home in the evening, his light suddenly went out.

“Hello!” said he reflectively, “it is the candle I first lit on the evening that Louise came—it was bound to finish with our union. If I had known I would have chosen a longer one,” he added, in a tone half of annoyance, half of regret, and he placed his mistress’s note in a drawer, which he sometimes styled the catacomb of his loves.

One day, being at Marcel’s, Rodolphe picked up from the ground to light his pipe with a scrap of paper on which he recognized the hand-writing and the orthography of Louise.

“I have,” said he to his friend, “an autograph of the same person; only there are two mistakes the less than in yours. Does not that prove that she loved me better than you?”

“That proves that you are a simpleton,” replied Marcel. “White arms and shoulders have no need of grammar.”