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Now all alcoholic drinks were particularly distasteful to me, so if I found myself sometimes in the company of this gay new arrival, it certainly was not in order to drink with her, but rather that I found diversion watching such unaccountable animation accompanied with its no less surprising reflexes. Tosie hated his wife and many were the altercations between them. He and Tessa showed decided annoyance at my even speaking to this enemy wife. I was their friend (so they supposed), their find. But I resented any such encroachment on my independence, and so, contrary-wise, I continued to see her. It was most unfortunate when one day I went so far -- and very far it was given my impecunious state -- as to ask my new American acquaintance to have tea with me at "Margherita's" in Paris. 

We met there, but to my consternation my guest would have nothing to do with mere tea and cakes. What she wanted was champagne. I tried hard to convince her that no good champagne could be obtained at a tea-shop. But champagne she would have and she ordered a bottle of the best ma[[strikethrough]]r[[/strikethrough]]k[[^e]].

Now in my purse there was sufficient money to pay for the expensive drink, but this sum I already owed to Madame Robin for my "pension". It no longer belonged to me. My guest was as usual lost to all sense of reality. I found that watching her was no longer a diversion, her mirth could now inspire no response. It was a relief when after the last glassful, in happy and mindless mood, she got up and took leave of me. 

I was left alone with the bill ... and I paid it. 

I was never to see this Baccante again for she did not return to O. 

Other and worse complications were now in store for me. On my return to O. I found Madame Robin in great distress. While she was out the Russian couple had left with their valiscs and ... without paying for the rooms. What was she to do? She would starve the coming winter. She began crying, and her thin body in its old black dress was bent over in despair. I felt very guilty indeed and all the more so that Madame Robin never once blamed me.