e leaden hues of grief overspread Eve's white brow. She
told her husband her secret in one of the pellucid talks in which
married lovers tell everything to each other. The tones of David's voice
brought comfort. Though the tears stood in his eyes when he knew that
grief had dried his wife's fair breast, and knew Eve's despair that she
could not fulfil a mother's duties, he held out reassuring hopes.

"Your brother's imagination has let him astray, you see, child. It is so
natural that a poet should wish for blue and purple robes, and hurry as
eagerly after festivals as he does. It is a bird that loves glitter and
luxury with such simple sincerity, that God forgives him if man condemns
him for it."

"But he is draining our lives!" exclaimed poor Eve.

"He is draining our lives just now, but only a few months ago he saved
us by sending us the first fruits of his earnings," said the good David.
He had the sense to see that his wife was in despair, was going beyond
the limit, and that love for Lucien would very soon come back. "Fifty
years ago, or thereabouts, Mercier said in his _Tableau de Paris_ that
a man cannot live by literature, poetry, letters, or science, by the
creatures of his brain, in short; and Lucien, poet that he is, would not
believe the experience of five centuries. The harvests that are watered
with ink are only reaped ten or twelve years after the sowing, if indeed
there is any harvest after all. Lucien has taken the green wheat for the
sheaves. He will have learned something of life, at any rate. He was the
dupe of a woman at the outset; he was sure to be duped afterwards by the
world and false friends. He has bought his experience dear, that is all.
Our ancestors used to say, 'If the son of the house brings back his two
ears and his honor safe, all is well----'"

"Honor!" poor Eve broke in. "Oh, but Lucien has fallen in so many ways!
Writing against his conscience! Attacking his best friend! Living upon
an actress! Showing himself in public with her. Bringing us to lie on
straw----"

"Oh, that is nothing----!" cried David, and suddenly stopped short. The
secret of Lucien's forgery had nearly escaped him, and, unluckily, his
start left a vague, uneasy impression on Eve.

"What do you mean by nothing?" she answered. "And where shall we find
the money to meet bills for three thousand francs?"

"We shall be obliged to renew the lease with Cerizet, to begin with,"
said David. "The Cointets have been