The struggle had sapped my last strength, however; and with the
first whiff of the gutters, the first rush of barefooted gamins
under my horse's hoofs, the first babel of street cries--the
first breath, in a word, of Paris--there came a new temptation;
to go for one last night to Zaton's, to see the tables again and
the faces of surprise, to be for an hour or two the old Berault.
That would be no breach of honour, for in any case I could not
reach the Cardinal before to-morrow. And it could do no harm.
It could make no change in anything. It would not have been a
thing worth struggling about, indeed; only--only I had in my
inmost heart a suspicion that the stoutest resolutions might lose
their force in that atmosphere; and that there even such a
talisman as the memory of a woman's looks and words might lose
its virtue.
Still, I think that I should have succumbed in the end if I had
not received at the corner of the Luxembourg a shock which
sobered me effectually. As I passed the gates, a coach, followed
by two outriders, swept out of the Palace courtyard; it was going
at a great pace, and I reined my jaded horse on one side to give
it room.
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