y."

"But, Suzanne, are you sure?"

"Oh, monsieur!" cried the grisette, wrapping her virtue round her,
"what do you take me for? I don't remind you of the promises you made
me, which have ruined a poor young girl whose only blame was to have
as much ambition as love."

Du Bousquier was torn with conflicting sentiments, joy, distrust,
calculation. He had long determined to marry Mademoiselle Cormon; for
the Charter, on which he had just been ruminating, offered to his
ambition, through the half of her property, the political career of a
deputy. Besides, his marriage with the old maid would put him socially
so high in the town that he would have great influence. Consequently,
the storm upraised by that malicious Suzanne drove him into the
wildest embarrassment. Without this secret scheme, he would have
married Suzanne without hesitation. In which case, he could openly
assume the leadership of the liberal party in Alencon. After such a
marriage he would, of course, renounce the best society and take up
with the bourgeois class of tradesmen, rich manufacturers and
graziers, who would certainly carry him in triumph as their candidate.
Du Bousquier already foresaw the Left side.

This solemn deliberation he did not conceal; he rubbed his hands over
his head, displacing the cap which covered its disastrous baldness.
Suzanne, meantime, like all those persons who succeed beyond their
hopes, was silent and amazed. To hide her astonishment, she assumed
the melancholy pose of an injured girl at the mercy of her seducer;
inwardly she was laughing like a grisette at her clever trick.

"My dear child," said du Bousquier at length, "I'm not to be taken in
with such /bosh/, not I!"

Such was the curt remark which ended du Bousquier's meditation. He
plumed himself on belonging to the class of cynical philosophers who
could never be "taken in" by women,--putting them, one and all, unto
the same category, as /suspicious/. These strong-minded persons are
usually weak men who have a special catechism in the matter of
womenkind. To them the whole sex, from queens of France to milliners,
are essentially depraved, licentious, intriguing, not a little
rascally, fundamentally deceitful, and incapable of thought about
anything but trifles. To them, women are evil-doing queens, who must
be allowed to dance and sing and laugh as they please; they see
nothing sacred or saintly in them, nor anything grand; to them there
is no poetry in the sen