to spend; a great deal for a bookbinder, but very
little for a woman whose gowns cost from five hundred to three
thousand francs apiece. And, as you are neither a Manager to
sign agreements, nor a Dramatic Author to apportion roles, nor
a Journalist to write notices, nor a young man from the draper's
to take advantage of a moment's caprice as opportunity offers
when delivering a new frock, I don't see in the least how you
are to make her favour you, and I think your tragedy queen did
quite right to slam her gate in your face."

"Ah, well!" sighed Jean Servien, "I told you just now I loved
her. It is not true. I hate her! I hate her for all the torments
she has made me suffer, I hate her because she is adorable and
men love her. And I hate all women, because they all love someone,
and that someone is not I!"

Garneret burst out laughing.

"Candidly," he grinned, "they are not so far wrong. Your love
has no spark of anything affectionate, kindly, useful in it.
Since the day you fell in love with Mademoiselle T----, have
you once thought of sparing her pain? Have you once dreamed of
making a sacrifice for her sake? Has any touch of human kindness
ever entered into your passion? Can it show one mark of manliness
or goodness? Not it. Well, being the poor devils we are, with
our own way to push in life and nothing to help us on, we must
be brave and good. It is half-past one, and I have to get up
at five. Good night. Cultivate a quiet mind, and come and see
me."

XVII

Jean had only three days left to prepare for his examination for
admission to the Ministry of Finance. These he spent at home,
where the faces of father, aunt, and apprentice seemed strange and
unfamiliar, so completely had they disappeared from his thoughts.
Monsieur Servien was displeased with his son, but was too timid
as well as too tactful to make any overt reproaches. His aunt
overwhelmed him with garrulous expressions of doting affection;
at night she would creep into his room to see if he was sound
asleep, while all day long she wearied him with the tale of her
petty grievances and dislikes.

Once she had caught the apprentice with her spectacles, her sacred
spectacles, perched on his nose, and the profanation had left
a kind of religious horror in her mind.

"That boy is capable of anything," she used to say. One of the
boy's pet diversions was to execute behind the old lady's back a
war-dance of the Cannibal Islanders he had seen on