He thought of her with affection as he drove back through the Bois de Boulogne.
He turned down the small unfashionable boulevard where he had bought a house. The whole place seemed deserted.
He left his car under the trees in the centre of the street, walked across the pavement and opened the door with his latchkey. It gave him an amusing sense of adventure to be stealing in unexpectedly to see Henriette. Usually there was a trim little maid whom he also paid to open the door for him and take his hat.
Henriette would be waiting for him up the stairs, sometimes dressed exotically, at others sensationally naked, as she had been last night when she wished him to buy her the emerald necklace.
The carpet was soft and the lights were out in the hall and on the stairs. The streetlamps shining
