e her a private allowance, to be
kept secret from her husband. This offer, however, she declined,
inconsistently declaring that the fifty francs were sufficient. But in
the course of the month she frequently wrote to Florent, calling
him their saviour. Her handwriting was small and fine, yet she would
contrive to fill three pages of letter paper with humble, flowing
sentences entreating the loan of ten francs; and this she at last did so
regularly that wellnigh the whole of Florent's hundred and fifty francs
found its way to the Verlaques. The husband was probably unaware of
it; however, the wife gratefully kissed Florent's hands. This charity
afforded him the greatest pleasure, and he concealed it as though it
were some forbidden selfish indulgence.

"That rascal Verlaque is making a fool of you," Gavard would sometimes
say. "He's coddling himself up finely now that you are doing the work
and paying him an income."

At last one day Florent replied:

"Oh, we've arranged matters together. I'm only to give him twenty-five
francs a month in future."

As a matter of fact, Florent had but little need of money. The Quenus
continued to provide him with board and lodging; and the few francs
which he kept by him sufficed to pay for the refreshment he took in the
evening at Monsieur Lebigre's. His life had gradually assumed all the
regularity of clockwork. He worked in his bedroom, continued to teach
little Muche twice a week from eight to nine o'clock, devoted an evening
to Lisa, to avoid offending her, and spent the rest of his spare time in
the little "cabinet" with Gavard and his friends.

When he went to the Mehudins' there was a touch of tutorial stiffness
in his gentle demeanour. He was pleased with the old house in the
Rue Pirouette. On the ground floor he passed through the faint odours
pervading the premises of the purveyor of cooked vegetables. Big pans of
boiled spinach and sorrel stood cooling in the little backyard. Then he
ascended the winding staircase, greasy and dark, with worn and bulging
steps which sloped in a disquieting manner. The Mehudins occupied the
whole of the second floor. Even when they had attained to comfortable
circumstances the old mother had always declined to move into fresh
quarters, despite all the supplications of her daughters, who dreamt of
living in a new house in a fine broad street. But on this point the old
woman was not to be moved; she had lived there, she said, and meant to
d