the Hotel Cluny
beneath them, the towers of Notre Dame in the middle ground, and at the
horizon the beautifully wooded hill of Pere la Chaise.

Suzette had tristful eyes when they rested upon this cemetery. Her baby
lay there, without a stone--not without a flower.

"_Pauvre petite Jules!_" she used to say, nestling close to Ralph, and
for a little while they would not speak nor move, but the smoke of his
cigar made a charmed circle around them, and the stars came out above,
and the panorama of the great Boulevard moved on at their feet.

Their first difficulties were financial, of course. Suzette would have
liked a silken robe, a new bonnet, a paletot, gloves and concomitants
unlimited. She delighted to walk upon the Boulevard, the Rue Rivoli, and
into the Palais Royal, looking into the shop-windows and selecting what
she would buy when Ralph's remittances came. Her hospitality when his
friends visited him did less honor to her purse than to her heart. She
certainly made excellent punches; Terrapin thought her cigarettes
unrivalled; she was fond of cutting a fruit-pie, and was quite a
_connoisseur_ with wines. Ralph did not wonder at her tidiness when the
laundry bills were presented, but doubted that the _coiffeur_ beautified
her hair; and one day, when a cool gentleman in civil uniform knocked at
the door, and insisted upon the immediate payment of a bill for fifty
francs, he lost his temper and said bad words. What could be done?
Suzette was sobbing; Ralph detested "scenes;" he threatened to leave
the hotel and Paris, and frightened her very much--and paid the money.

"You said, Suzette, that you had rendered a full account of all your
indebtedness. You told me a lie!"

"Poor boy," she replied, "this debt was so old that I never expected to
hear of it."

"Have you any more--old or otherwise?"

Suzette said demurely that she did not owe a sou in the world, but was
able to recall thirty francs in the course of the afternoon, and assured
him, truly, that this was the last.

Still, she lacked economy. They went to the same _cremery_, but her
meals cost one half more than his. She never objected to a ride in a
_voiture_; she liked to go to the balls, but walked very soberly upon
his arm, recognizing nobody, and exacting the same behavior from Ralph.
Let him look at an unusually pretty girl, through a shop-window, upon
his peril! If a letter came for him signed Lizzie, or Annie, or Mary,
she took the dictionary a