reflection you will see what you propose is impossible. Poor I may
be without dishonour; live at another man's cost I cannot do without
baseness. It does not require to be 'gentilhomme' to feel that: it is
enough to be a Frenchman. Come and see me when you can spare the time.
There is my address. You are the only man in Paris to whom I shall be at
home. Au revoir." And breaking away from Lemercier's clasp, the Marquis
hurried off.

CHAPTER III.

Alain reached the house in which he lodged. Externally a fine house,
it had been the hotel of a great family in the old regime. On the first
floor were still superb apartments, with ceilings painted by Le Brun,
with walls on which the thick silks still seemed fresh. These rooms
were occupied by a rich 'agent de change;' but, like all such ancient
palaces, the upper stories were wretchedly defective even in the
comforts which poor men demand nowadays: a back staircase, narrow,
dirty, never lighted, dark as Erebus, led to the room occupied by the
Marquis, which might be naturally occupied by a needy student or a
virtuous 'grisette.' But there was to him a charm in that old hotel,
and the richest 'locataire' therein was not treated with a respect so
ceremonious as that which at tended the lodger on the fourth story.
The porter and his wife were Bretons; they came from the village of
Rochebriant; they had known Alain's parents in their young days; it was
their kinsman who had recommended him to the hotel which they served:
so, when he paused at the lodge for his key, which he had left there,
the porter's wife was in waiting for his return, and insisted on
lighting him upstairs and seeing to his fire, for after a warm day the
night had turned to that sharp biting cold which is more trying in Paris
than even in London.

The old woman, running up the stairs before him, opened the door of his
room, and busied herself at the fire. "Gently, my good Marthe," said he,
"that log suffices. I have been extravagant to-day, and must pinch for
it."

"M. le Marquis jests," said the old woman, laughing.

"No, Marthe; I am serious. I have sinned, but I shall reform. 'Entre
nous,' my dear friend, Paris is very dear when one sets one's foot out
of doors: I must soon go back to Rochebriant."

"When M. le Marquis goes back to Rochebriant he must take with him a
Madame la Marquise,--some pretty angel with a suitable dot."

"A dot suitable to the ruins of Rochebriant would not suffice to re