he declared. "But, to tell you the truth,
she is also a franche coquette. I am sorry to say," he added in a
moment, shaking his head with a world of harmless bitterness, "that she
comes honestly by it. Her mother was one before her!"

"You were not happy with your wife?" Newman asked.

M. Nioche gave half a dozen little backward jerks of his head. "She was
my purgatory, monsieur!"

"She deceived you?"

"Under my nose, year after year. I was too stupid, and the temptation
was too great. But I found her out at last. I have only been once in my
life a man to be afraid of; I know it very well; it was in that hour!
Nevertheless I don't like to think of it. I loved her--I can't tell you
how much. She was a bad woman."

"She is not living?"

"She has gone to her account."

"Her influence on your daughter, then," said Newman encouragingly, "is
not to be feared."

"She cared no more for her daughter than for the sole of her shoe! But
Noemie has no need of influence. She is sufficient to herself. She is
stronger than I."

"She doesn't obey you, eh?"

"She can't obey, monsieur, since I don't command. What would be the use?
It would only irritate her and drive her to some coup de tete. She is
very clever, like her mother; she would waste no time about it. As a
child--when I was happy, or supposed I was--she studied drawing and
painting with first-class professors, and they assured me she had a
talent. I was delighted to believe it, and when I went into society I
used to carry her pictures with me in a portfolio and hand them round
to the company. I remember, once, a lady thought I was offering them for
sale, and I took it very ill. We don't know what we may come to! Then
came my dark days, and my explosion with Madame Nioche. Noemie had no
more twenty-franc lessons; but in the course of time, when she grew
older, and it became highly expedient that she should do something that
would help to keep us alive, she bethought herself of her palette
and brushes. Some of our friends in the quartier pronounced the idea
fantastic: they recommended her to try bonnet making, to get a situation
in a shop, or--if she was more ambitious--to advertise for a place of
dame de compagnie. She did advertise, and an old lady wrote her a letter
and bade her come and see her. The old lady liked her, and offered her
her living and six hundred francs a year; but Noemie discovered that
she passed her life in her arm-chair and had only two visito