remedy you would advise me to take. How do you yourself manage to bear life? To remain passive, doing nothing—that were surely impossible. Work? But work is of no avail. Unless something happens to rescue me, I shall have to leave the office; I fear I am about to go mad. … Are you still interested in art? You paint very little now; I cannot make out why."
Gina shook her head with a drowsy air. "I always preferred Life to Art."
"Why," I said, noticing that she was in evening dress, "you are going out to-night!" The thought of staying by myself all the evening made me shudder. At the same time, I felt my cheeks colouring, for I feared there was a mortification in store for me which I could not understand. "I trust you will tell me quite frankly."
For a few seconds she knit her brows and reflected. Then, "I think," she said, "that it will not be impossible. … I have for a long time wished to make you the proposal; but, in such a matter, one cannot be too cautious. … Yet, after all, we too have something in common. And I have learned to know you."
Abruptly she came to a decision.
