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ning dress, listen entranced behind their fans. This one might pose as the very ideal of his kind; with his vulgar but irresistible countenance, sunken eye, pallid complexion, hair cut short and moustaches stiffly plastered with cosmetic. A desperate man such as women love, hopeless of life but irreproachably dressed, a lyric enthusiast, chilled and disheartened, in whom the madness of inspiration can be divined only in the loose and neglected tie of his cravat. But also what success awaits him, when he delivers in a strident voice a tirade from his poem, the _Credo of Love_, more especially the one ending in this extraordinary line: Moi, je crois a l'amour comme je crois en Dieu! * * I believe in love as I believe in God. [Illustration: p045-56] Mark you, I strongly suspect the rascal cares as little for God, as for the rest; but women do not look so closely. They are easily caught by a birdlime of words, and every time Amaury recites his _Credo of Love_, you are certain to see all round the drawing-room rows upon rows of little rosy mouths, eagerly opening, ready to swallow the taking bait of mawkish sentimentality. Just fancy! A poet who has such beautiful moustaches and who believes in love as he believes in God. For the nurseryman's wife this proved indeed irresistible. In three sittings she was conquered. Only, as at the bottom of this elegiac nature there was some honesty and pride, she would not stoop to any paltry fault. Moreover the poet himself declared in his _Credo_, that he only understood one way of erring: that which was openly declared and ready to defy both law and society. Taking therefore the _Credo of Love_ for her guide, the young woman one fine day escaped from the garden at Auteuil and went off to throw herself into her poet's arms.--"I can no longer live with that man! Take me away!" In such cases the husband is always _that man_, even when he is a horticulturist. For a moment Amaury was staggered. How on earth could he have imagined that an ordinary little housewife of thirty would have taken in earnest a love poem, and followed it out literally? However he put the best face he could on his over-good fortune, and as the lady had, thanks to her little Auteuil garden, remained fresh and pretty, he carried her off without a murmur. The first days, all was delightful. They feared lest the husband should track them. They thought it advisable to hide under fictitious names
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