speaking. Oh, how fresh and sweet it
was under these trees!

At last they reached the door of Rosine's dwelling. With a slow movement
she pressed her hand upon the bell-button. Then Amedee, with a great
effort, and in a confused, husky voice, asked whether he might go up
with her and see her little room.

She looked at him steadily, with a tender sadness in her eyes, and then
said to him, softly:

"No, certainly not! One must be sensible. I please you this evening,
and you know very well that I think you are charming. It is true we knew
each other when we were young, and now that we have met again, it seems
as if it would be pleasant to love each other. But, believe me, we
should commit a great folly, perhaps a wrong. It is better, I assure
you, to forget that you ever met me at Bullier's with big Margot, and
only remember your little playmate of the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. It
will be better than a caprice, it will be something pure that you
can keep in your heart. Do not let us spoil the remembrance of our
childhood, Monsieur Amedee, and let us part good friends."

Before the young man could find a reply, the bell pealed again, and
Rosine gave Amedee a parting smile, lightly kissing the tips of her
fingers, and disappeared behind the doer, which fell together, with
a loud bang. The poet's first movements was one of rage. Giddy
weather-cock of a woman! But he had hardly taken twenty steps upon the
sidewalk before he said to himself, with a feeling of remorse, "She was
right!" He thought that this poor girl had kept in one corner of her
heart a shadow of reserve and modesty, and he was happy to feel rise
within him a sacred respect for woman!

Amedee, my good fellow, you are quite worthless as a man of pleasure.
You had better give it up!

CHAPTER XII. SOCIAL TRIUMPHS

For one month now Amedee Violette's volume of verses, entitled Poems
from Nature, had embellished with its pale-blue covers the shelves of
the book-shops. The commotion raised by the book's success, and the
favorable criticisms given by the journals, had not yet calmed down at
the Cafe de Seville.

This emotion, let it be understood, did not exist except among the
literary men. The politicians disdained poets and poetry, and did not
trouble them selves over such commonplace matters. They had affairs of a
great deal more importance to determine the overthrow of the government
first, then to remodel the map of Europe! What was necessary to