nd tried to interpret it, and in the end called
him a _vilain_ and wept.

Toward the letters signed "Lizzie" she conceived a deep antipathy. With
a woman's instinct she discerned that "Lizzie" was more to Ralph than
any other correspondent. A single letter satisfied her of this; and when
he was reading it, for the second time, she snatched it from his hand
and flung it fiercely upon the floor. Ralph's eyes blazed menace and her
own cowered.

"Take up that letter, Suzette!"

"I won't!"

"Take it up, I say! I command! instantly!" He had risen to his feet,
and was the master now. She stooped, with pale jealousy lying whitely in
her temples, and gave it to him meekly, and sat down very stricken and
desolate. There was one whom he loved better than her--she felt it
bitterly--a love more respectful, more profound--a woman, perhaps, whom
he meant to make his wife some day, when SHE should be only a shameful
memory!

It may have been the reproach of this infidelity, or the thought of his
home, or the infatuation of his present guileful attachment, which kept
Ralph Flare from labor.

There was the great Louvre, filled with the riches of the old masters,
and the galleries of the Luxembourg with the gems of the French school,
so marvellous in color and so superb in composition, and the mighty
museum of Versailles, with its miles of battle pictures--yet the third
month of his tenure in Paris was hastening by, and he had not made one
copy.

Suzette was a bad model. She _posed_ twice, but changed her position,
and yawned, and said it was ridiculous. He had never made more than a
crayon portrait of her. He found, too, that five hundred francs a month
barely sufficed to keep them, and once, in the interval of a remittance,
they were in danger of hunger. Yet Suzette plied her needle bravely, and
was never so proud as when she had spread the dinner she had earned. In
acknowledgment of this fidelity Ralph took her to a grand _magasin_,
where they examined the goods gravely, as married folks do, consulting
each other, and trying to seem very sage and anxious.

There probably was never such a bonnet as Suzette's in the world. It was
black, and full of white roses, and floating a defiant ostrich-plume,
and tied with broad red ribbons, whereby she could be recognized from
one end of the Luxembourg gardens to the other.

The paletot was clever in like manner; she made the dress herself, and
its fit was perfection, showing her plump