the bottles under his arm. "You should have let me
purchase it, at least. How much?"

"Ten francs."

"Ten francs! It is frightful! And two for this claret, I'll warrant!"

"More than that, innocent."

"What! more than----"

"Four francs."

She held up her little hands, speechless, being unable to do justice
to his extravagance. He laughed.

"It is an important occasion," said he. "But, really, you are simply
astonishing, little one."

"La, la, la!"

Jean had an artistic sense, and Mlle. Fouchette now appealed to it. He
watched her skipping about the place and tried to reconcile this
sweet, bright-eyed, light-hearted creature with the woman he had known
as "La Savatiere."

"Que diable! but she is--well, what in the name of all the goddesses
has come over the girl, anyhow? It can't be that Lerouge--yet she
didn't want to have him see her here."

Conscious of this scrutiny, Fouchette would have been compelled to
retreat to the kitchen on some pretext if she had not got this
occasional shelter by necessity. She was so happy. Her heart was so
light she could not be quite certain if she were really on the earth
or not. Never had Jean looked so handsome to her.

"Dame! It is nothing," she said and repeated over and over to
herself,--"it is nothing; and yet I am surely the happiest girl in the
world. Oh, when he looks at me with his beautiful eyes like that I
feel as if I could fly! Mon Dieu! but if he touched me now I should
faint! I should die!"

A vigorous ring at the door smote her ear. She trembled.

"Well, why don't you go, melon?" He spoke with a sharpness that fell
on her like a blow.

She fumbled nervously at her apron-strings.

"Go as you are, stupid!"

"Yes, monsieur."

If her heart had not already fallen suddenly to zero, it would have
dropped there when she opened the vestibule door.

The elderly image of Jean Marot stood before her. Somewhat stouter of
figure and broader of feature, with full grayish beard and moustache
that concealed the outlines of the lower face, but still such a
striking likeness of father to son that even one less versed in the
human physiognomy than Mlle. Fouchette must have at once recognized
Marot pere. The deeply recessed eyes looked darker and seemed to burn
more fiercely than Jean's, and more accurately suggested Lerouge.
Indeed, to the casual observer the man might have been the father of
either of the two young men. In bearing and attire the figure was that