.
It is from Armida: the devil take me if I expected to find that in the
fourth story of a house in the Rue du Temps Perdu."

"Chevalier, I predict," said the abbe, "that if the singer be young and
pretty, in a week there will be as much trouble to get you away as there
is now to keep you here."

"My dear abbe," said D'Harmental, "if your police were as good as those
of the Prince de Cellamare, you would know that I am cured of love for a
long time, and here is the proof. Do not think I pass my days in
sighing. I beg when you go down you will send me something like a pate,
and a dozen bottles of good wine. I trust to you. I know you are a
connoisseur; besides, sent by you, it will seem like a guardian's
attention. Bought by me, it would seem like a pupil's debauch; and I
have my provincial reputation to keep up with Madame Denis."

"That is true. I do not ask you what it is for, but I will send it to
you."

"And you are right, my dear abbe. It is all for the good of the cause."

"In an hour the pate and the wine will be here."

"When shall I see you again?"

"To-morrow, probably."

"Adieu, then, till to-morrow."

"You send me away."

"I am expecting somebody."

"All for the good of the cause?"

"I answer you, go, and may God preserve you."

"Stay, and may the devil not get hold of you. Remember that it was a
woman who got us turned out of our terrestrial paradise. Defy women."

"Amen," said the chevalier, making a parting sign with his hand to the
Abbe Brigaud.

Indeed, as the abbe had observed, D'Harmental was in a hurry to see him
go. The great love for music, which the chevalier had discovered only
the day before, had progressed so rapidly that he did not wish his
attention called away from what he had just heard. The little which that
horrible window allowed him to hear, and which was more of the
instrument than of the voice, showed that his neighbor was an excellent
musician. The playing was skillful, the voice sweet and sustained, and
had, in its high notes and deep vibrations, something which awoke an
answer in the heart of the listener. At last, after a very difficult and
perfectly executed passage, D'Harmental could not help clapping his
hands and crying bravo! As bad luck would have it, this triumph, to
which she had not been accustomed, instead of encouraging the musician,
frightened her so much, that voice and harpsichord stopped at the same
instant, and silence immediately succeeded to t