f the foremost men of our
country. The man who has often picked his food from baskets of scraps
where the restaurateurs put their refuse, which are emptied at six
o'clock every morning--that man is not likely to recoil before any
means,--avowable, of course. Well, do you think me the friend of the
people?" he said, smiling. "One has to have a speaking-trumpet to reach
the ear of Fame; she doesn't listen if you speak with your lips; and
without fame of what use is talent? The poor man's advocate means to be
some day the advocate of the rich. Is that plain speaking? Don't I open
my inmost being to you? Then open your heart to me. Say to me, 'Let us
be friends,' and the day will come when we shall both be happy."

"Good heavens! why did I ever come here? Why did I ever take your arm?"
cried Flavie.

"Because it is in your destiny," he replied. "Ah! my dear, beloved
Flavie," he added, again pressing her arm upon his heart, "did you
expect to hear the vulgarities of love from me? We are brother and
sister; that is all."

And he led her towards the passage to return to the rue d'Enfer.

Flavie felt a sort of terror in the depths of the contentment which all
women find in violent emotions; and she took that terror for the sort of
fear which a new passion always excites; but for all that, she felt she
was fascinated, and she walked along in absolute silence.

"What are you thinking of?" asked Theodose, when they reached the middle
of the passage.

"Of what you have just said to me," she answered.

"At our age," he said, "it is best to suppress preliminaries; we are not
children; we both belong to a sphere in which we should understand each
other. Remember this," he added, as they reached the rue d'Enfer.--"I am
wholly yours."

So saying, he bowed low to her.

"The iron's in the fire now!" he thought to himself as he watched his
giddy prey on her way home.

CHAPTER VI. A KEYNOTE

When Theodose reached home he found, waiting for him on the landing, a
personage who is, as it were, the submarine current of this history; he
will be found within it like some buried church on which has risen the
facade of a palace. The sight of this man, who, after vainly ringing
at la Peyrade's door, was now trying that of Dutocq, made the Provencal
barrister tremble--but secretly, within himself, not betraying
externally his inward emotion. This man was Cerizet, whom Dutocq had
mentioned to Thuillier as his copying-clerk.

Ceri