to return the good thing that belongs to you, if you refuse to
accept it to-day."

"But, Suzanne, are you sure?"

"Oh, monsieur!" cried the grisette, wrapping her virtue round her, "what
do you take me for? I don't remind you of the promises you made me,
which have ruined a poor young girl whose only blame was to have as much
ambition as love."

Du Bousquier was torn with conflicting sentiments, joy, distrust,
calculation. He had long determined to marry Mademoiselle Cormon;
for the Charter, on which he had just been ruminating, offered to his
ambition, through the half of her property, the political career of a
deputy. Besides, his marriage with the old maid would put him socially
so high in the town that he would have great influence. Consequently,
the storm upraised by that malicious Suzanne drove him into the wildest
embarrassment. Without this secret scheme, he would have married Suzanne
without hesitation. In which case, he could openly assume the leadership
of the liberal party in Alencon. After such a marriage he would, of
course, renounce the best society and take up with the bourgeois class
of tradesmen, rich manufacturers and graziers, who would certainly carry
him in triumph as their candidate. Du Bousquier already foresaw the Left
side.

This solemn deliberation he did not conceal; he rubbed his hands over
his head, displacing the cap which covered its disastrous baldness.
Suzanne, meantime, like all those persons who succeed beyond their
hopes, was silent and amazed. To hide her astonishment, she assumed the
melancholy pose of an injured girl at the mercy of her seducer; inwardly
she was laughing like a grisette at her clever trick.

"My dear child," said du Bousquier at length, "I'm not to be taken in
with such _bosh_, not I!"

Such was the curt remark which ended du Bousquier's meditation. He
plumed himself on belonging to the class of cynical philosophers who
could never be "taken in" by women,--putting them, one and all, unto the
same category, as _suspicious_. These strong-minded persons are usually
weak men who have a special catechism in the matter of womenkind. To
them the whole sex, from queens of France to milliners, are essentially
depraved, licentious, intriguing, not a little rascally, fundamentally
deceitful, and incapable of thought about anything but trifles. To them,
women are evil-doing queens, who must be allowed to dance and sing and
laugh as they please; they see nothing sacred