But the avenues through which she walked, in shadows studded with lights, enveloped her with that mild atmosphere of the queen of cities, so agreeable to its inhabitants, which makes itself felt even in the cold of winter.

She walked between the lines of huts and old houses, remains of the field-days of Auteuil, which tall houses interrupted here and there.

These small shops, these monotonous windows, were nothing to her.
Yet she felt that she was under the mysterious spell of the friendship of inanimate things; and it seemed to her that the stones, the doors of houses, the lights behind the windowpanes, looked kindly upon her.

She was alone, and she wished to be alone.

The steps she was taking between the two houses wherein her habits were almost equal, the steps she had taken so often, to-day seemed to her irrevocable.