h enclosed in a photograph-case of
sky-blue plush, in which Marianne recognized a swaggering fellow with
flat face, large hands, fierce, bushy moustache, who leaned on a cane,
swelling out his huge chest in outline against a mean, gray-tinted
garden ornamented with Medicis vases.

"A handsome fellow, isn't he? Quite young!--and he loves me--I adore
him, too!"

The tumid eyes of Claire Dujarrier resembled lighted coals. She pressed
kiss after kiss of her painted lips on the photograph and reverently
laid it on the table.

Marianne almost pitied this half-senile love, the courtesan's
terrifying, last love.

She was, however, too content either to trouble herself, or even to
reflect upon it. She was wild with joy. It seemed to her that a sudden
rift had opened before her and a gloriously sunny future pictured itself
to her mind. What an inspiration it was to think of Claire Dujarrier!

She would sign everything she wished, acknowledge the sums lent, with
any interest that might be demanded. Much she cared about that,
indeed!--She was sure now to free herself and to _succeed_.

"You are jolly right," said the ancient danseuse. "The nest is entirely
at the birds' disposal. Your minister--I don't ask his name, but I shall
learn it by the bills of exchange--would treat you as a grisette if he
found you at your uncle's. Whereas at Vanda's--ah! at Vanda's! you will
have news to tell me. So, see this is all that is necessary. I will
write to Vanda that her house is rented, and well rented. Kiss me and
skip! I hear Adolphe coming. He does not care to see new faces. And
then, yours is too pretty!" she added, with a peculiar significance.

She got the old servant to show Marianne out promptly, as if she felt
fearful lest her _husband_ should see the pretty creature. Claire
Dujarrier was certainly jealous.

"It is not I that would rob her of her porter!" Marianne thought, as she
walked away from Rue La Fontaine.

Evening was now darkening the gray streets. A faint bluish mist was
rising over the river and spreading like breath over the quays. Marianne
saw Paris in the distance, and her visit seemed like a dream to her; she
closed her eyes, and a voice within her whispered confusedly the names
of Rosas, Vaudrey, Vanda, Rue Prony; she pictured herself stretched at
length on a reclining chair in the luxurious house of a courtesan, and
she saw at her feet that man--a minister--who supplicatingly besought
her favor, while in th