ndeavoured to hold him back by his coat skirts, swearing his
business was urgent.

But Desmahis had already slipped away between horses, guards, swords and
torches, and was in hot pursuit of the milliner's girl.

IV

It was ten o'clock in the forenoon. The April sun bathed the tender
leafage of the trees in light. A storm had cleared the air during the
night and it was deliciously fresh and sweet. At long intervals a
horseman passing along the Allee des Veuves broke the silence and
solitude. On the outskirts of the shady avenue, over against a rustic
cottage known as _La Belle Lilloise_, Evariste sat on a wooden bench
waiting for Elodie. Since the day their fingers had met over the
embroidery and their breaths had mingled, he had never been back to the
_Amour peintre_. For a whole week his proud stoicism and his timidity,
which grew more extreme every day, had kept him away from Elodie. He had
written her a letter conceived in a key of gravity, at once sombre and
ardent, in which, explaining the grievance he had against the _citoyen_
Blaise, but saying no word of his love and concealing his chagrin, he
announced his intention of never returning to her father's shop, and was
now showing greater steadfastness in keeping this resolution than a
woman in love was quite likely to approve.

A born fighter whose bent was to defend her property under all
circumstances, Elodie instantly turned her mind to the task of winning
back her lover. At first she thought of going to see him at the studio
in the Place de Thionville. But knowing his touchy temper and judging
from his letter that he was sick and sore, she feared he might come to
regard daughter and father with the same angry displeasure and make a
point of never seeing her again; so she deemed it wiser to invite him to
a sentimental, romantic rendezvous which he could not well decline,
where she would have ample time to cajole and charm him and where
solitude would be her ally to fascinate his senses and overcome his
scruples.

At this period, in all the English gardens and all the fashionable
promenades, rustic cottages were to be found, built by clever
architects, whose aim it was to flatter the taste of the city folk for a
country life. The _Belle Lilloise_ was occupied as a house of light
refreshment; its exterior bore a look of poverty that was part of the
_mise en scene_ and it stood on the fragments, artistically imitated, of
a fallen tower, so as to unit