on to the
fact that this Godefroid had thrown up diplomacy."

"Well, he was absorbed," said Blondet. "Love gives the fool his one
chance of growing great."

"Blondet, Blondet, how is it that we are so poor?" cried Bixiou.

"And why is Finot so rich?" returned Blondet. "I will tell you how
it is; there, my son, we understand each other. Come, there is Finot
filling up my glass as if I had carried in his firewood. At the end of
dinner one ought to sip one's wine slowly,--Well?"

"Thou has said. The absorbed Godefroid became fully acquainted with the
family--the tall Malvina, the frivolous Baroness, and the little lady
of the dance. He became a servant after the most conscientious and
restricted fashion. He was not scared away by the cadaverous remains
of opulence; not he! by degrees he became accustomed to the threadbare
condition of things. It never struck the young man that the green silk
damask and white ornaments in the drawing-room needed refurnishing.
The curtains, the tea-table, the knick-knacks on the chimney-piece, the
rococo chandelier, the Eastern carpet with the pile worn down to the
thread, the pianoforte, the little flowered china cups, the fringed
serviettes so full of holes that they looked like open work in the
Spanish fashion, the green sitting-room with the Baroness' blue bedroom
beyond it,--it was all sacred, all dear to him. It is only your stupid
woman with the brilliant beauty that throws heart, brain, and soul into
the shade, who can inspire forgetfulness like this; a clever woman never
abuses her advantages; she must be small-natured and silly to gain such
a hold upon a man. Beaudenord actually loved the solemn old Wirth--he
has told me so himself!

"That old rogue regarded his future master with the awe which a good
Catholic feels for the Eucharist. Honest Wirth was a kind of Gaspard,
a beer-drinking German sheathing his cunning in good-nature, much as a
cardinal in the Middle Ages kept his dagger up his sleeve. Wirth saw a
husband for Isaure, and accordingly proceeded to surround Godefroid with
the mazy circumlocutions of his Alsacien's geniality, that most adhesive
of all known varieties of bird-lime.

"Mme. d'Aldrigger was radically 'improper.' She thought love the most
natural thing imaginable. When Isaure and Malvina went out together to
the Champs Elysees or the Tuileries, where they were sure to meet the
young men of their set, she would simply say, 'A pleasant time to you,
dear gir