e Duval, and was reconciled to suspense. At the cafe, awaiting
Lebeau, he had slid into some acquaintance with the ouvrier Armand
Monnier, whose face and talk had before excited his interest. Indeed,
the acquaintance had been commenced by the ouvrier, who seated himself
at a table near to Graham's, and, after looking at him earnestly for
some minutes, said, "You are waiting for your antagonist at dominos, M.
Lebeau,--a very remarkable man."

"So he seems. I know, however, but little of him. You, perhaps, have
known him longer?"

"Several months. Many of your countrymen frequent this cafe, but you do
not seem to care to associate with the blouses."

"It is not that; but we islanders are shy, and don't make acquaintance
with each other readily. By the way, since you so courteously accost me,
I may take the liberty of saying that I overheard you defend the other
night, against one of my countrymen, who seemed to me to talk great
nonsense, the existence of le bon Dieu. You had much the best of it. I
rather gathered from your argument that you went somewhat further, and
were not too enlightened to admit of Christianity."

Armand Monnier looked pleased. He liked praise; and he liked to hear
himself talk, and he plunged at once into a very complicated sort of
Christianity,--partly Arian, partly Saint Simonian, with a little of
Rousseau and a great deal of Armand Monnier. Into this we need not
follow him; but, in sum, it was a sort of Christianity, the main heads
of which consisted in the removal of your neighbour's landmarks, in the
right of the poor to appropriate the property of the rich, in the right
of love to dispense with marriage, and the duty of the State to provide
for any children that might result from such union,--the parents being
incapacitated to do so, as whatever they might leave was due to the
treasury in common. Graham listened to these doctrines with melancholy
not unmixed with contempt. "Are these opinions of yours," he asked,
"derived from reading or your own reflection?"

"Well, from both, but from circumstances in life that induced me to
read and reflect. I am one of the many victims of the tyrannical law of
marriage. When very young I married a woman who made me miserable, and
then forsook me. Morally, she has ceased to be my wife; legally, she is.
I then met with another woman who suits me, who loves me. She lives with
me; I cannot marry her; she has to submit to humiliations, to be called
contemp