Excuse me, madame," continued he, approaching the fair unknown, whose face at the outset he could not at first get a full view of, "but you have not by chance found my handkerchief ?" "Yes, sir," replied the young lady, "here it is." And she placed in Marcel's hand a handkerchief she had been holding in her own.
The artist rolled into an abyss of astonishment.
But all at once a burst of laughter full in his face recalled him to himself.

By this joyous outbreak he recognized his old love.
It was Mademoiselle Musette.
"Ah!" she exclaimed.

"Monsieur Marcel in quest of gallant adventures.
What do you think of this one, eh?
It does not lack fun." "I think it endurable," replied Marcel.
"Where are you going so late in this region ?" asked Musette.
"I am going into that edifice," said the artist, pointing to a little theater where he was on the free list.
"For the sake of art ?" "No, for the sake of Laura." "Who is Laura ?" continued Musette, whose eyes shot forth notes of interrogation.
Marcel kept up the tone.
"She is a chimera whom I am pursuing, and who plays here." And he pretended to pull out an imaginary shirt frill.
"You are very witty this evening," said Musette.
"And you very curious," observed Marcel.
"Do no speak so loud, everyone can hear us, and they will take us for two lovers quarrelling." "It would not be the first time that that happened," said Marcel.
Musette read a challenge in this sentence, and quickly replied, "And it will not perhaps be the last, eh ?" Her words were plain, they whizzed past Marcel's ear like a bullet.
"Splendors of heaven," said he, looking up at the stars, "you are witness that it is not I who opened fire.

Quick, my armor." From that moment the firing began.
It was now only a question of finding some appropriate pretext to bring about an agreement between these two fancies that had just woke up again so lively.
As they walked along, Musette kept looking at Marcel, and Marcel kept looking at Musette.

They did not speak, but their eyes, those plenipotentiaries of the heart, often met.