--far more than she is worth. No, No; I had
better have accepted her dismissal. Elle n'est pas digne de moi."

Just as he arrived at that conclusion, Gustave Rameau felt the touch of
a light, a soft, a warm, yet a firm hand, on his aria. He turned, and
beheld the face of the woman whom, through so many dreary weeks, he had
sought to shun--the face of Julie Caumartin. Julie was not, as Savarin
had seen her, looking pinched and wan, with faded robes, nor, as when
met in the cafe by Lemercier, in the faded robes of a theatre. Julie
never looked more beautiful, more radiant, than she did now; and there
was a wonderful heartfelt fondness in her voice when she cried, "Mon
homme! mon homme! seul homme au monde a mon coeur, Gustave, cheri adore!
I have found thee-at last--at last!" Gustave gazed upon her, stupefied.
Involuntarily his eye glanced from the freshness of bloom in her face
which the intense cold of the atmosphere only seemed to heighten into
purer health, to her dress, which was new and handsome--black--he did
not know that it was mourning--the cloak trimmed with costly sables.
Certainly it was no mendicant for alms who thus reminded the shivering
Adonis of the claims of a pristine Venus. He stammered out her naive,
"Julie!"--and then he stopped.

"Oui, ta Julie! Petit ingrat! how I have sought for thee! how I have
hungered for the sight of thee! That monster Savarin! he would not give
me any news of thee. That is ages ago. But at least Frederic Lemercier,
whom I saw since, promised to remind thee that I lived still. He did not
do so, or I should have seen thee--n'est ce, pas?"

"Certainly, certainly--only--chere amie--you know that--that--as I
before announced to thee, I--I--was engaged in marriage--and--and--"

"But are you married?"

"No, no. Hark! Take care--is not that the hiss of an obus?"

"What then? Let it come! Would it might slay us both while my hand is in
thine!"

"Ah!" muttered Gustave, inwardly, "what a difference! This is love! No
preaching here! Elle est plus digne de moi que d'autre."

"No," he said, aloud, "I am not married. Marriage is at best a pitiful
ceremony. But if you wished for news of me, surely you must have heard
of my effect as an orator not despised in the Salle Favre. Since, I have
withdrawn from that arena. But as a journalist I flatter myself that I
have had a beau succes."

"Doubtless, doubtless, my Gustave, my Poet! Wherever thou art, thou must
be first among men. But,