ippe, giving a hand to Flore to help her down. "You
are no longer in Monsieur Rouget's service. You will not sleep here
to-night; get your things together, and go. Benjamin takes your place."

"Are you the master here?" said Flore sarcastically.

"With your permission," replied Philippe, squeezing her hand as if in a
vice. "Come! we must have an understanding, you and I"; and he led the
bewildered woman out into the place Saint-Jean.

"My fine lady," began the old campaigner, stretching out his right hand,
"three days hence, Maxence Gilet will be sent to the shades by that arm,
or his will have taken me off guard. If I die, you will be the mistress
of my poor imbecile uncle; 'bene sit.' If I remain on my pins, you'll
have to walk straight, and keep him supplied with first-class happiness.
If you don't, I know girls in Paris who are, with all due respect, much
prettier than you; for they are only seventeen years old: they would
make my uncle excessively happy, and they are in my interests. Begin
your attentions this very evening; if the old man is not as gay as a
lark to-morrow morning, I have only a word to say to you; it is this,
pay attention to it,--there is but one way to kill a man without the
interference of the law, and that is to fight a duel with him; but I
know three ways to get rid of a woman: mind that, my beauty!"

During this address, Flore shook like a person with the ague.

"Kill Max--?" she said, gazing at Philippe in the moonlight.

"Come, here's my uncle."

Old Rouget, turning a deaf ear to Monsieur Hochon's remonstrances, now
came out into the street, and took Flore by the hand, as a miser might
have grasped his treasure; he drew her back to the house and into his
own room and shut the door.

"This is Saint-Lambert's day, and he who deserts his place, loses it,"
remarked Benjamin to the Pole.

"My master will shut your mouth for you," answered Kouski, departing to
join Max who established himself at the hotel de la Poste.

On the morrow, between nine and eleven o'clock, all the women talked
to each other from door to door throughout the town. The story of the
wonderful change in the Rouget household spread everywhere. The upshot
of the conversations was the same on all sides,--

"What will happen at the banquet between Max and Colonel Bridau?"

Philippe said but few words to the Vedie,--"Six hundred francs' annuity,
or dismissal." They were enough, however, to keep her neutral, for a
tim