he
neighborhood."

"It is true," answered the advocate, coolly. "I know how to count, and
that accomplishment is very useful to me. It enables me to know exactly
how and where I have got rid of my fortune."

"So you really know?" sneered Juliette.

"And I can tell you, madam," continued he. "At first you were not very
exacting, but the appetite came with eating. You wished for luxury,
you have it; splendid furniture, you have it; a complete establishment,
extravagant dresses, I could refuse you nothing. You required a
carriage, a horse, I gave them you. And I do not mention a thousand
other whims. I include neither this Chinese cabinet nor the two dozen
bracelets. The total is four hundred thousand francs!"

"Are you sure?"

"As one can be who has had that amount, and has it no longer."

"Four hundred thousand francs, only fancy! Are there no centimes?"

"No."

"Then, my dear friend, if I make up my bill, you will still owe me
something."

The entrance of the maid with the tea-tray interrupted this amorous
duet, of which Noel had experienced more than one repetition. The
advocate held his tongue on account of the servant. Juliette did the
same on account of her lover, for she had no secrets from Charlotte, who
had been with her three years, and with whom she had shared everything,
sometimes even her lovers.

Madame Juliette Chaffour was a Parisienne. She was born about 1839,
somewhere in the upper end of the Faubourg Montmarte. Her father was
unknown. Her infancy was a long alternation of beatings and caresses,
equally furious. She had lived as best she could, on sweetmeats and
damaged fruit; so that now her stomach could stand anything. At twelve
years old she was as thin as a nail, as green as a June apple, and more
depraved than the inmates of the prison of St. Lazare. Prudhomme would
have said that this precocious little hussy was totally destitute of
morality. She had not the slightest idea what morality was. She thought
the world was full of honest people living like her mother, and her
mother's friends. She feared neither God nor devil, but she was afraid
of the police. She dreaded also certain mysterious and cruel persons,
whom she had heard spoken of, who dwell near the Palais de Justice, and
who experience a malicious pleasure in seeing pretty girls in trouble.
As she gave no promise of beauty, she was on the point of being placed
in a shop, when an old and respectable gentleman, who had known her