man not in society.

"He has wit," she said, "fantasy, and an original temperament. He
pleases me."

And as he reproached her for having an odd taste, she replied:

"I haven't a taste, I have tastes. You do not disapprove of them all, I
suppose."

He replied that he did not criticise her. He was only afraid that she
might do herself harm by receiving a Bohemian who was not welcome in
respectable houses.

She exclaimed:

"Not welcome in respectable houses--Choulette? Don't you know that
he goes every year for a month to the Marquise de Rieu? Yes, to the
Marquise de Rieu, the Catholic, the royalist. But since Choulette
interests you, listen to his latest adventure. Paul Vence related it to
me. I understand it better in this street, where there are shirts and
flowerpots at the windows.

"This winter, one night when it was raining, Choulette went into a
public-house in a street the name of which I have forgotten, but which
must resemble this one, and met there an unfortunate girl whom the
waiters would not have noticed, and whom he liked for her humility. Her
name was Maria. The name was not hers. She found it nailed on her
door at the top of the stairway where she went to lodge. Choulette was
touched by this perfection of poverty and infamy. He called her his
sister, and kissed her hands. Since then he has not quitted her a
moment. He takes her to the coffee-houses of the Latin Quarter where the
rich students read their reviews. He says sweet things to her. He weeps,
she weeps. They drink; and when they are drunk, they fight. He loves
her. He calls her his chaste one, his cross and his salvation. She was
barefooted; he gave her yarn and knitting-needles that she might make
stockings. And he made shoes for this unfortunate girl himself, with
enormous nails. He teaches her verses that are easy to understand. He is
afraid of altering her moral beauty by taking her out of the shame where
she lives in perfect simplicity and admirable destitution."

Le Menil shrugged his shoulders.

"But that Choulette is crazy, and Paul Vence has no right to tell you
such stories. I am not austere, assuredly; but there are immoralities
that disgust me." They were walking at random. She fell into a dream.

"Yes, morality, I know--duty! But duty--it takes the devil to discover
it. I can assure you that I do not know where duty is. It's like a young
lady's turtle at Joinville. We spent all the evening looking for it
under the furnitu