I had been poetizing too much.

She had treated me like a school-boy, she had used in deceiving me a trick which was insultingly simple.

My self-esteem got the upper hand.

I must leave this woman without giving her the satisfaction of knowing that she had made me suffer, and this is what I wrote to her in my most elegant handwriting and with tears of rage and sorrow in my eyes: "MY DEAR MARGUERITE: I hope that your indisposition yesterday was not serious.

I came, at eleven at night, to ask after you, and was told that you had not come in.