no lover of
music, for D'Harmental heard suddenly, just below his feet, the noise of
a stick knocking on the ceiling with such violence that he could not
doubt that it was a warning to him to put off his melodious occupation
till a more suitable period. Under other circumstances, D'Harmental
would have sent the impertinent adviser to the devil, but reflecting
that any ill-feeling on the lodger's part would injure his own
reputation with Madame Denis, and that he was playing too heavy a game
to risk being recognized, and not to submit philosophically to all the
inconveniences of the new position which he had adopted, instead of
setting himself in opposition to the rules established without doubt
between Madame Denis and her lodgers, he obeyed the intimation,
forgetting in what manner that intimation had been given him.

On her part, as soon as she heard nothing more, the young girl left the
window, and as she let the inner curtains fall behind her, she
disappeared from D'Harmental's eyes. For some time longer he could still
see a light in her room; then the light was extinguished. As to the
window on the fifth floor, for some time that had been in the most
perfect darkness. D'Harmental also went to bed, joyous to think that
there existed a point of sympathy between himself and his neighbor.

The next day the Abbe Brigaud entered the room with his accustomed
punctuality. The chevalier had already been up more than an hour; he had
gone twenty times to his window, but without seeing his neighbor,
although it was evident that she was up, even before himself; indeed, on
waking he had seen the large curtains put up in their bands. Thus he was
disposed to let out his ill-humor on any one.

"Ah! pardieu! my dear abbe," said he, as soon as the door was shut;
"congratulate the prince for me on his police; it is perfectly
arranged, on my honor!"

"What have you got against them?" asked the abbe, with the half-smile
which was habitual to him.

"What have I! I have, that, wishing to judge for myself, last evening,
of its truth, I went and hid myself in the Rue Tournon. I remained there
four hours, and it was not the regent who came to his daughter, but
Madame de Berry who went to her father."

"Well, we know that."

"Ah! you know that!" said D'Harmental.

"Yes, and by this token, that she left the Luxembourg at five minutes to
eight, with Madame de Mouchy and Madame de Pons, and that she returned
at half-past nine, bringin