r it.

"It is that it is very cold to-night," he answered, with that
exaggerated ease of manner with which the young and the simple seek to
conceal embarrassment. "Tell me, mademoiselle, what have we for supper
to-night? It is I who will cook it. To-night we will keep a fete. There
is that piece of beef for you. I know a way to make it appetizing. For
me there is my portion of horse. It is the friend of man--the horse."

He laughed and made an effort to be gay, which had a poignant pathos in
it that made Desiree bite her lip.

"What fete is it that we are to keep?" she asked, with a wan smile. Her
kind blue eyes had that glitter in them which is caused by a constant
and continuous hunger. Six months ago they had only been gay and kind,
now they saw the world as it is, as it always must be so long as the
human heart is capable of happiness and the human reason recognizes the
rarity of its attainment.

"The fete of St. Matthias--my fete, mademoiselle."

"But I thought your name was Jean."

"So it is. But I keep my fete at St. Matthias, because on that day we
won a battle in Egypt. We will have wine--a bottle of wine--eh?"

So Barlasch prepared a great feast which was to be celebrated by Desiree
in the dining-room, where he lighted a fire, and by himself in the
kitchen. For he held strongly to a code of social laws which the great
Revolution had not succeeded in breaking. And one of these laws was that
it would be in some way degrading to Desiree to see him eat.

He was a skilled and delicate cook, only hampered by that insatiable
passion for economy which is the dominant characteristic of the peasant
of Northern France. To-night, however, he was reckless, and Desiree
could hear him searching in his secret hiding-place beneath the floor
for concealed condiments and herbs.

"There," he said, when he set the dish before her, "eat it with an easy
mind. There is nothing unclean in it. It is not rat or cat or the liver
of a starved horse, such as we others eat and ask no better. It is all
clean meat."

He poured out wine, and stood in the darkened doorway watching her drink
it. Then he went away to his own meal in the kitchen, leaving Desiree
vaguely uneasy--for he was not himself to-night. She could hear him
muttering as he ate and moved hither and thither in the kitchen. At
short intervals he came and looked in at the door to make sure that she
was doing full honour to St. Matthias. When she had finished, he came