ue de Beaune, he felt her arm tremble in his, and joy
lighted up her worn face; the poor soul breathed like one relieved of
a heavy weight. The next day, inspired by joy and gratitude, she paid
Joseph a number of little attentions; she decorated his studio with
flowers, and bought him two stands of plants. On the first Sunday when
Philippe was to sit, Agathe arranged a charming breakfast in the studio.
She laid it all out on the table; not forgetting a flask of brandy,
which, however, was only half full. She herself stayed behind a screen,
in which she made a little hole. The ex-dragoon sent his uniform the
night before, and she had not refrained from kissing it. When Philippe
was placed, in full dress, on one of those straw horses, all saddled,
which Joseph had hired for the occasion, Agathe, fearing to betray her
presence, mingled the soft sound of her tears with the conversation
of the two brothers. Philippe posed for two hours before and two hours
after breakfast. At three o'clock in the afternoon, he put on his
ordinary clothes and, as he lighted a cigar, he proposed to his brother
to go and dine together in the Palais-Royal, jingling gold in his pocket
as he spoke.

"No," said Joseph, "it frightens me to see gold about you."

"Ah! you'll always have a bad opinion of me in this house," cried the
colonel in a thundering voice. "Can't I save my money, too?"

"Yes, yes!" cried Agathe, coming out of her hiding-place, and kissing
her son. "Let us go and dine with him, Joseph!"

Joseph dared not scold his mother. He went and dressed himself; and
Philippe took them to the Rocher de Cancale, where he gave them a
splendid dinner, the bill for which amounted to a hundred francs.

"The devil!" muttered Joseph uneasily; "with an income of eleven hundred
francs you manage, like Ponchard in the 'Dame Blance,' to save enough to
buy estates."

"Bah, I'm on a run of luck," answered the dragoon, who had drunk
enormously.

Hearing this speech just as they were on the steps of the cafe, and
before they got into the carriage to go to the theatre,--for Philippe
was to take his mother to the Cirque-Olympique (the only theatre her
confessor allowed her to visit),--Joseph pinched his mother's arm.
She at once pretended to feel unwell, and refused to go the theatre;
Philippe accordingly took them back to the rue Mazarin, where, as soon
as she was alone with Joseph in her garret, Agathe fell into a gloomy
silence.

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