. Buvat was quite confused, and went away; but this time without
singing. The same day the clerk resigned. Now as it was difficult to
replace a clerk who resigned because he was not paid, and whose work
must be done all the same, the chief told Buvat, besides his own work,
to do that of the missing clerk. Buvat undertook it without murmur; and
as his ordinary work had left him some time free, at the end of the
month the business was done.

They did not pay the third month any more than the two others--it was a
real bankruptcy. But as has been seen, Buvat never bargained with his
duties. What he had promised on the first impulse he did on reflection;
but he was forced to attack his treasure, which consisted of two years'
pay. Meanwhile Bathilde grew. She was now a young girl of thirteen or
fourteen years old, whose beauty became every day more remarkable, and
who began to understand all the difficulties of her position. For some
time the walks in the Porcheron and the expedition to Montmartre had
been given up under pretext that she preferred remaining at home to draw
or play on the harpsichord.

Buvat did not understand these sedentary tastes which Bathilde had
acquired so suddenly. And as, after having tried two or three times to
go out without her, he found that it was not the walk itself he cared
for, he resolved, as he must have air upon a Sunday, to look for a
lodging with a garden. But lodgings with gardens were too dear for his
finances, and having seen the lodging in the Rue du Temps-Perdu, he had
the bright idea of replacing the garden by a terrace. He came back to
tell Bathilde what he had seen, telling her that the only inconvenience
in this lodging would be that their rooms must be separated, and that
she would be obliged to sleep on the fourth floor with Nanette, and he
on the fifth. This was rather a recommendation to Bathilde. For some
time she had begun to feel it inconvenient that her room should be only
separated by a door from that of a man still young and who was neither
her father nor her husband. She therefore assured Buvat that the lodging
must suit him admirably, and advised him to secure it at once. Buvat was
delighted, and at once gave notice to quit his old lodgings, and at the
half-term he moved. Bathilde was right; for since her black mantle
sketched her beautiful shoulders--since her mittens showed the prettiest
fingers in the world--since of the Bathilde of former times there was
nothing