refuses to make his
wife an allowance; I wished to make him feel that the child is in my
power."

"Yes, monsieur, I quite suspected it," replied the lawyer. "For that
reason I readily agreed to be little Polydore's godfather, and he is
registered as the son of the Baron and Baronne de la Baudraye; if you
have the feelings of a father, you ought to rejoice in knowing that the
child is heir to one of the finest entailed estates in France."

"And pray, sir, is the mother to die of hunger?"

"Be quite easy," said the lawyer bitterly, having dragged from Lousteau
the expression of feeling he had so long been expecting. "I will
undertake to transact the matter with Monsieur de la Baudraye."

Monsieur de Clagny left the house with a chill at his heart.

Dinah, his idol, was loved for her money. Would she not, when too late,
have her eyes opened?

"Poor woman!" said the lawyer, as he walked away. And this justice we
will do him--for to whom should justice be done unless to a Judge?--he
loved Dinah too sincerely to regard her degradation as a means of
triumph one day; he was all pity and devotion; he really loved her.

The care and nursing of the infant, its cries, the quiet needed for the
mother during the first few days, and the ubiquity of Madame Piedefer,
were so entirely adverse to literary labors, that Lousteau moved up
to the three rooms taken on the first floor for the old bigot. The
journalist, obliged to go to the first performances without Dinah, and
living apart from her, found an indescribable charm in the use of his
liberty. More than once he submitted to be taken by the arm and dragged
off to some jollification; more than once he found himself at the house
of a friend's mistress in the heart of bohemia. He again saw women
brilliantly young and splendidly dressed, in whom economy seemed treason
to their youth and power. Dinah, in spite of her striking beauty, after
nursing her baby for three months, could not stand comparison with these
perishable blossoms, so soon faded, but so showy as long as they live
rooted in opulence.

Home life had, nevertheless, a strong attraction for Etienne. In three
months the mother and daughter, with the help of the cook from
Sancerre and of little Pamela, had given the apartment a quite changed
appearance. The journalist found his breakfast and his dinner served
with a sort of luxury. Dinah, handsome and nicely dressed, was careful
to anticipate her dear Etienne's wish