man, what he care, if he has gold? Virtue! ha, ha! what is that in your
wife if you have gold for it? Nothing. See his hand at the Intendant's
arm. See how M'sieu' Doltaire look at them, and then up here at us. What
is it in his mind, you think? Eh? You think he say to himself, A wife
all to himself is the poor man's one luxury? Eh? Ah, M'sieu' Doltaire,
you are right, you are right. You catch up my child from its basket
in the market-place one day, and you shake it ver' soft, an' you say,
"Madame, I will stake the last year of my life that I can put my finger
on the father of this child." And when I laugh in his face, he say
again, "And if he thought he wasn't its father, he would cut out the
liver of the other--eh?" And I laugh, and say, "My Jacques would follow
him to hell to do it." Then he say, Voban, he say to me, "That is the
difference between you and us. We only kill men who meddle with our
mistresses!" Ah, that M'sieu' Doltaire, he put a louis in the hand of
my babe, and he not even kiss me on the cheek. Pshaw! Jacques would sell
him fifty kisses for fifty louis. But sell me, or a child of me? Well,
Voban, you can guess! Pah, barber, if you do not care what he did to the
poor Mathilde, there are other maids in St. Roch.'"

Voban paused a moment then added quietly, "How do you think I bear
it all? With a smile? No, I hear with my ears open and my heart close
tight. Do they think they can teach me? Do they guess I sit down and
hear all without a cry from my throat or a will in my body? Ah, m'sieu'
le Capitaine, it is you who know. You saw what I would have go to do
with M'sieu' Doltaire before the day of the Great Birth. You saw if I
am coward--if I not take the sword when it was at my throat without a
whine. No, m'sieu', I can wait. Then is a time for everything. At first
I am all in a muddle, I not how what to do; but by-and-bye it all come
to me, and you shall one day what I wait for. Yes, you shall see. I
look down on that people dancing there, quiet and still, and I hear some
laugh at me, and now and then some one say a good word to me that make
me shut my hands tight, so the tears not come to my eyes. But I felt
alone--so much alone. The world does not want a sad man. In my shop I
try to laugh as of old, and I am not sour or heavy, but I can see men
do not say droll things to me as once back time. No, I am not as I was.
What am I to do? There is but one way. What is great to one man is not
to another. Wha