vard des Capucines with a light
step, when the sight of Mme. Jenkins troubled his serenity for a moment.
She had a youthful air, a light in her eyes, something so piquant that
he stopped to look at her. Tall and beautiful, with her long dress of
black gauze, her shoulders wrapped in a lace mantle, her hat trimmed
with a garland of autumn leaves, she disappeared in the midst of other
elegant women in the balmy atmosphere; and the thought that his eyes
were going to close forever on this delightful sight, whose pleasures he
knew so well, saddened Monpavon a little, and took the spring from his
step. But a few paces farther on, a meeting of another kind gave him
back all his courage.

Some one, threadbare, shamefaced, dazzled by the light, was coming down
the Boulevard. It was old Marestang, former senator, former minister,
so deeply compromised in the affairs of the "Malta Biscuits," that,
in spite of his age, his services, and the great scandal of such a
proceeding, he had been condemned to two years of prison, struck off
the roll of the Legion of Honour, of which he had been one of the
dignitaries. The affair was long ago; the poor wretch had just been let
out of prison before his sentence had expired, lost, ruined, not having
even the means to gild his trouble, for he had had to pay what he owed.
Standing on the curb, he was waiting with bent head till the crowds of
carriages should allow him to pass, embarrassed by this stoppage at the
fullest spot of the boulevards between the passers-by and the sea of
open carriages filled with familiar figures. Monpavon walking near him,
caught his timid, uneasy look, imploring a recognition and hiding from
it at the same time. The idea that one day he could humiliate himself
thus, gave him a shudder of revolt. "Oh! that is not possible!" And
straightening himself up and throwing out his chest, he kept on his way,
firmer and more resolute than before.

M. de Monpavon walks to his death! He goes there by the long line of
the boulevards, all on fire in the direction of the Madeleine, where
he treads the elastic asphalt once more as a lounger, nose in the air,
hands crossed behind. He has time; there is no hurry; he is master of
the rendezvous. At each instant he smiles before him, waves a greeting
from the ends of his fingers or makes the more formal bow we have
just seen. Everything revives him, charms him, the noise of the
watering-carts, the awnings of the _cafes_, pulled down to