P,--I have pitched my tent in the Rue Chauchat. I
have taken the precaution of getting a few friends to clean up the
paint. All is well. Come when you please, monsieur; Hagar awaits
her Abraham.'

"Heloise will have some news for me, for she has her bohemia at her
fingers' end."

"But Monsieur Hulot took the disaster very calmly," said Lisbeth.

"Impossible!" cried Crevel, stopping in a parade as regular as the
swing of a pendulum.

"Monsieur Hulot is not as young as he was," Lisbeth remarked
significantly.

"I know that," said Crevel, "but in one point we are alike: Hulot
cannot do without an attachment. He is capable of going back to his
wife. It would be a novelty for him, but an end to my vengeance. You
smile, Mademoiselle Fischer--ah! perhaps you know something?"

"I am smiling at your notions," replied Lisbeth. "Yes, my cousin is
still handsome enough to inspire a passion. I should certainly fall in
love with her if I were a man."

"Cut and come again!" exclaimed Crevel. "You are laughing at me.--The
Baron has already found consolation?"

Lisbeth bowed affirmatively.

"He is a lucky man if he can find a second Josepha within twenty-four
hours!" said Crevel. "But I am not altogether surprised, for he told
me one evening at supper that when he was a young man he always had
three mistresses on hand that he might not be left high and dry--the
one he was giving over, the one in possession, and the one he was
courting for a future emergency. He had some smart little work-woman
in reserve, no doubt--in his fish-pond--his _Parc-aux-cerfs_! He is
very Louis XV., is my gentleman. He is in luck to be so handsome!
--However, he is ageing; his face shows it.--He has taken up with
some little milliner?"

"Dear me, no," replied Lisbeth.

"Oh!" cried Crevel, "what would I not do to hinder him from hanging up
his hat! I could not win back Josepha; women of that kind never come
back to their first love.--Besides, it is truly said, such a return is
not love.--But, Cousin Betty, I would pay down fifty thousand francs
--that is to say, I would spend it--to rob that great good-looking
fellow of his mistress, and to show him that a Major with a portly
stomach and a brain made to become Mayor of Paris, though he is a
grandfather, is not to have his mistress tickled away by a poacher
without turning the tables."

"My position," said Lisbeth, "compels me to hear everything and know
nothing. You may talk to me without