"I entered the apartment. She rose up the moment she heard my name p.r.o.nounced; and suddenly our eyes met in a fixed look of astonishment.
"I sat down.
"I uttered in a faltering tone some commonplaces which she seemed not to hear. I did not know what to say or to do. Then, abruptly, I flung myself upon her; seizing her with both arms; and my entire dream was accomplished so quickly, so easily, so madly, that I suddenly began to doubt whether I was really awake. She was, after this, my mistress for two years."
"What conclusion do you draw from it?" said a voice.
The story-teller seemed to hesitate.
"The conclusion I draw from it--well, by Jove, the conclusion is that it was just a coincidence! And, in the next place, who can tell? Perhaps it was some glance of hers which I had not noticed and which came back that night to me--one of those mysterious and unconscious evocations of memory which often bring before us things ignored by our own consciousness, unperceived by our minds!"
"Let that be just as you wish it," said one of his table companions, when the story was finished, "but if you don"t believe in magnetism after that, you are an ungrateful fellow, my dear boy!"