her, but none the less questioned her to find out
what he was.

"He was a ship's captain, my dear."

Was this not preventing any inquiry, and, at the same time, assuming a
higher ground through this pretended fascination exercised over a man
who must have been of warlike nature and accustomed to receive homage?

The clerk then felt the lowliness of his position; he longed for
epaulettes, crosses, titles. All that would please her--he gathered that
from her spendthrift habits.

Emma nevertheless concealed many of these extravagant fancies, such as
her wish to have a blue tilbury to drive into Rouen, drawn by an English
horse and driven by a groom in top-boots. It was Justin who had inspired
her with this whim, by begging her to take him into her service as
valet-de-chambre*, and if the privation of it did not lessen the
pleasure of her arrival at each rendezvous, it certainly augmented the
bitterness of the return.

* Manservant.

Often, when they talked together of Paris, she ended by murmuring, "Ah!
how happy we should be there!"

"Are we not happy?" gently answered the young man passing his hands over
her hair.

"Yes, that is true," she said. "I am mad. Kiss me!"

To her husband she was more charming than ever. She made him
pistachio-creams, and played him waltzes after dinner. So he thought
himself the most fortunate of men and Emma was without uneasiness, when,
one evening suddenly he said--

"It is Mademoiselle Lempereur, isn't it, who gives you lessons?"

"Yes."

"Well, I saw her just now," Charles went on, "at Madame Liegeard's. I
spoke to her about you, and she doesn't know you."

This was like a thunderclap. However, she replied quite naturally--

"Ah! no doubt she forgot my name."

"But perhaps," said the doctor, "there are several Demoiselles Lempereur
at Rouen who are music-mistresses."

"Possibly!" Then quickly--"But I have my receipts here. See!"

And she went to the writing-table, ransacked all the drawers, rummaged
the papers, and at last lost her head so completely that Charles
earnestly begged her not to take so much trouble about those wretched
receipts.

"Oh, I will find them," she said.

And, in fact, on the following Friday, as Charles was putting on one
of his boots in the dark cabinet where his clothes were kept, he felt
a piece of paper between the leather and his sock. He took it out and
read--

"Received, for three months' lessons and several pieces of music,