"
He stood close to the wall of the house beneath Marcolina's window,
which was still closed. His thoughts ran on: "Is it too late? I
could come back to-morrow or the next day. Could begin the work of
seduction--in honorable fashion, so to speak. To-night would be but a
foretaste of the future. Marcolina must not learn that I have been here
to-day--or not until much later."
CHAPTER TEN.
Marcolina's window was still closed. There was no sign from within. It
wanted a few minutes to midnight. Should he make his presence known in
any way? By tapping gently at the window? Since nothing of this sort had
been arranged, it might arouse Marcolina's suspicions. Better wait. It
could not be much longer. The thought that she might instantly recognize
him, might detect the fraud before he had achieved his purpose, crossed
his mind--not for the first time, yet as a passing fancy, as a remote
possibility which it was logical to take into account, but not anything
to be seriously dreaded.
A ludicrous adventure now recurred to his mind. Twenty years ago he had
spent a night with a middle-aged ugly vixen in Soleure, when he had
imagined himself to be possessing a beautiful young woman whom he
adored.
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