ill tell you the
reason. I came with my uncle, and I have my room at Madame de
Montluisant's.

Before that declaration Monsieur and Madame Patin bowed.

--Ah, that is not right, said Madame Patin; Madame de Montluisant is
opposing us, she is drawing our clients to her house.... My dear, have you
told Monsieur Marcel that a young person has come?...

--Your husband has told me, Madame, and that proves to you that I certainly
had the intention of staying with you, since I showed her your address. It
had escaped my memory, otherwise I should have called to ask you to send
the young person to Madame de Montluisant's.

--She will certainly come back again, for she seemed very desirous of
seeing you. Must I send her to you at that lady's?

--No, but tell her to come again this evening late. I have a thousand
things to do, and I can scarcely see any moment but that when I shall be
free.

That evening at eight o'clock, he was at Monsieur Patin's, where he found a
good fire in a small sitting-room well closed, with the newspapers and a
cup of coffee. The young girl had called again during the day, and would
return. Marcel installed himself comfortably in an arm-chair and waited for
her.

He had seen the Bishop again, who had flashed before his eyes a future,
full of golden rays. The visit of Ridoux and the Comtesse had preceded his
own, and in the sudden change of manner of the prelate towards him, he
recognized the good offices of his new friend.

A good dinner had completed the happy day, and life appeared to him, after
all, to have some sweetness.

LXXXIX.

LOVE AGAIN.

"Oh Folly, which we call love, what
dost thou make of us? Out of free-men
thou dost make us slaves; thou
dost breathe into us all the vices. It
is thou who dost supply the altars of
disloyalty and fear! It is thou who
dost extract from thought the rhetorician's
art, and from enthusiasm a vile
profession. How many young people
have you blighted! all the fairest. Ah,
siren, thy voice is sweet. Thou speakest
to us the language of the gods, but
thou are only an impure beast."

JEAN LAROQUE (_Niobe_).

A kind of emotion seized him. He was almost ashamed of it, and tried to
give an account of it to himself. It seemed to him that he was affected as
if at the approach of sin. He restrained his feelings and enquired of
himself what this young girl could want with him.

Perhaps she was but a common courtesan wh