noon
and then she related all that M. Rameau had said , and finished by producing the copy of Gustave 's unhallowed journal . When she had read the latter , which she did with compressed lips and varying colour , the girl fell on her knees -- not to thank Heaven that she would now escape a union from which her soul so recoiled -- not that she was indeed free , but to pray , with tears rolling down her cheeks , that God would yet save to Himself , and to good ends , the soul that she had failed to bring to Him . All previous irritation against Gustave was gone : all had melted into an ineffable compassion . When , a little before noon , Gustave was admitted by the servant into Isaura 's salon , its desolate condition , stripped of all its pretty feminine elegancies , struck him with a sense of discomfort to himself which superseded any more remorseful sentiment . The day was intensely cold : the single log on the hearth did not burn ; there were only two or three chairs in the room ; even the carpet , which had been of gaily coloured Aubusson , was gone . His teeth chattered ; and he only replied by a dreary nod to the servant who informed him that Madame Venosta was gone out , and Mademoiselle had not yet quitted her own room . If there be a thing which a true Parisian of Rameau 's stamp associates with love of woman , it is a certain sort of elegant surroundings , a pretty boudoir , a cheery hearth , an easy fauteuil .