in September, 1838--you were very beautiful; I shall often recall
you to memory in that pretty little gown of mousseline-de-laine of the
color of some Scottish tartan! That day I said to myself: 'Why is that
woman so often at the Thuilliers'; above all, why did she ever have
intimate relations with Thuillier himself?--'"

"Monsieur!" said Flavie, alarmed at the singular course la Peyrade was
giving to the conversation.

"Eh! I know all," he cried, accompanying the words with a shrug of his
shoulders. "I explain it all to my own mind, and I do not respect you
less. You now have to gather the fruits of your sin, and I will help
you. Celeste will be very rich, and in that lies your own future. You
can have only one son-in-law; chose him wisely. An ambitious man might
become a minister, but you would humble your daughter and make her
miserable; and if such a man lost his place and fortune he could
never recover it. Yes, I love you," he continued. "I love you with an
unlimited affection; you are far above the mass of petty considerations
in which silly women entangle themselves. Let us understand each other."

Flavie was bewildered; she was, however, awake to the extreme frankness
of such language, and she said to herself, "He is not a secret
manoeuvrer, certainly." Moreover, she admitted to her own mind that no
one had ever so deeply stirred and excited her as this young man.

"Monsieur," she said, "I do not know who could have put into your mind
so great an error as to my life, nor by what right you--"

"Ah! pardon me, madame," interrupted the Provencal with a coolness that
smacked of contempt. "I must have dreamed it. I said to myself, 'She is
all that!' But I see I was judging from the outside. I know now why you
are living and will always live on a fourth floor in the rue d'Enfer."

And he pointed his speech with an energetic gesture toward the
Colleville windows, which could be seen through the passage from the
alley of the Luxembourg, where they were walking alone, in that immense
tract trodden by so many and various young ambitions.

"I have been frank, and I expected reciprocity," resumed Theodose.
"I myself have had days without food, madame; I have managed to live,
pursue my studies, obtain my degree, with two thousand francs for my
sole dependence; and I entered Paris through the Barriere d'Italie,
with five hundred francs in my pocket, firmly resolved, like one of
my compatriots, to become, some day, one o