uare planted with meager, dusty elm
trees. The place was so well known in Vauchamp that it was customary
to say, "Are you coming to Melanie's?" At the farther end of the first
room, which was a spacious one, there was another called "the divan," a
narrow apartment having sham leather benches placed against the walls,
while at each corner there stood a marble-topped table. The widow,
deserting her seat in the front room, where she left her little servant
Phrosine, spent her evenings in the inner apartment, ministering to
a few customers, the usual frequenters of the place, those who were
currently styled "the gentlemen of the divan." When a man belonged to
that set it was as if he had a label on his back; he was spoken of with
smiles of mingled contempt and envy.

Mme Cartier had become a widow when she was five and twenty. Her
husband, a wheelwright, who on the death of an uncle had amazed Vauchamp
by taking the Cafe de Paris, had one fine day brought her back with him
from Montpellier, where he was wont to repair twice a year to purchase
liqueurs. As he was stocking his establishment he selected, together
with divers beverages, a woman of the sort he wanted--of an engaging
aspect and apt to stimulate the trade of the house. It was never known
where he had picked her up, but he married her after trying her in the
cafe during six months or so. Opinions were divided in Vauchamp as
to her merits, some folks declaring that she was superb, while others
asserted that she looked like a drum-major. She was a tall woman with
large features and coarse hair falling low over her forehead. However,
everyone agreed that she knew very well how to fool the sterner sex.
She had fine eyes and was wont to fix them with a bold stare on the
gentlemen of the divan, who colored and became like wax in her hands.
She also had the reputation of possessing a wonderfully fine figure, and
southerners appreciate a statuesque style of beauty.

Cartier had died in a singular way. Rumor hinted at a conjugal quarrel,
a kick, producing some internal tumor. Whatever may have been the truth,
Melanie found herself encumbered with the cafe, which was far from doing
a prosperous business. Her husband had wasted his uncle's inheritance in
drinking his own absinthe and wearing out the cloth of his own billiard
table. For a while it was believed that the widow would have to sell
out, but she liked the life and the establishment just as it was. If she
could secu