Mademoiselle Noemie's career.

"I told you she was remarkable," this unshrinking observer declared,
"and the way she has managed this performance proves it. She has had
other chances, but she was resolved to take none but the best. She did
you the honor to think for a while that you might be such a chance. You
were not; so she gathered up her patience and waited a while longer. At
last her occasion came along, and she made her move with her eyes wide
open. I am very sure she had no innocence to lose, but she had all her
respectability. Dubious little damsel as you thought her, she had kept
a firm hold of that; nothing could be proved against her, and she was
determined not to let her reputation go till she had got her equivalent.
About her equivalent she had high ideas. Apparently her ideal has been
satisfied. It is fifty years old, bald-headed, and deaf, but it is very
easy about money."

"And where in the world," asked Newman, "did you pick up this valuable
information?"

"In conversation. Remember my frivolous habits. In conversation with a
young woman engaged in the humble trade of glove-cleaner, who keeps a
small shop in the Rue St. Roch. M. Nioche lives in the same house, up
six pair of stairs, across the court, in and out of whose ill-swept
doorway Miss Noemie has been flitting for the last five years. The
little glove-cleaner was an old acquaintance; she used to be the friend
of a friend of mine, who has married and dropped such friends. I often
saw her in his society. As soon as I espied her behind her clear little
window-pane, I recollected her. I had on a spotlessly fresh pair of
gloves, but I went in and held up my hands, and said to her, 'Dear
mademoiselle, what will you ask me for cleaning these?' 'Dear count,'
she answered immediately, 'I will clean them for you for nothing.' She
had instantly recognized me, and I had to hear her history for the last
six years. But after that, I put her upon that of her neighbors. She
knows and admires Noemie, and she told me what I have just repeated."

A month elapsed without M. Nioche reappearing, and Newman, who every
morning read two or three suicides in the "Figaro," began to suspect
that, mortification proving stubborn, he had sought a balm for his
wounded pride in the waters of the Seine. He had a note of M. Nioche's
address in his pocket-book, and finding himself one day in the quartier,
he determined in so far as he might to clear up his doubts. He repaired