Theodose, on several
occasions, had made advances to the jovial secretary of the mayor's
office, and had felt himself rebuffed by a coldness which was not
natural in so sociable a man. When the game of bouillotte came to an
end, Colleville seized the moment to draw Thuillier into the recess of a
window and say to him:--

"You are letting that lawyer get too much foothold in your house; he
kept the ball in his own hands all the evening."

"Thank you, my friend; forewarned is forearmed," replied Thuillier,
inwardly scoffing at Colleville.

Theodose, who was talking at the moment to Madame Colleville, had his
eye on the two men, and, with the same prescience by which women know
when and how they are spoken of, he perceived that Colleville was trying
to injure him in the mind of the weak and silly Thuillier. "Madame," he
said in Flavie's ear, "if any one here is capable of appreciating you
it is certainly I. You seem to me a pearl dropped into the mire. You
say you are forty-two, but a woman is no older than she looks, and many
women of thirty would be thankful to have your figure and that noble
countenance, where love has passed without ever filling the void in
your heart. You have given yourself to God, I know, and I have too much
religion myself to regret it, but I also know that you have done so
because no human being has proved worthy of you. You have been loved,
but you have never been adored--I have divined that. There is your
husband, who has not known how to please you in a position in keeping
with your deserts. He dislikes me, as if he thought I loved you; and he
prevents me from telling you of a way that I think I have found to
place you in the sphere for which you were destined. No, madame," he
continued, rising, "the Abbe Gondrin will not preach this year through
Lent at our humble Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas; the preacher will be
Monsieur d'Estival, a compatriot of mine, and you will hear in him one
of the most impressive speakers that I have ever known,--a priest whose
outward appearance is not agreeable, but, oh! what a soul!"

"Then my desire will be gratified," said poor Madame Thuillier. "I have
never yet been able to understand a famous preacher."

A smile flickered on the lips of Mademoiselle Thuillier and several
others who heard the remark.

"They devote themselves too much to theological demonstration," said
Theodose. "I have long thought so myself--but I never talk religion; if
it had not been