at woman. He forgot the assembly, the foyer, that human
crowd that he ruled from the height of the tribune, and Adrienne, who
was seated yonder at the window, awaiting him. He forgot everything.
Like those who possess the singular faculty of easily receiving and
losing impressions, he fancied that his horizon was limited to these
walls with their silken hangings, these carpets, this feminine salon,
opening on a boudoir, a retreat whence escaped the odors of flowers and
perfume bottles.

Then, too, a special feeling of pride entered his heart. He felt his joy
increased tenfold at the thought that he, the petty bourgeois from
Grenoble, had snatched this woman from a duke and, like a great
nobleman, had paid the debts that she had contracted. He raised his head
proudly from an instinctive impulse of vanity. Rosas! He, the son of
honest Dauphiny folks, would crush him with his liberality.

"What shall I do to silence those creditors?" he said to
Marianne,--whose hands he held and whose face grazed his in a way that
almost made him frantic.

"Nothing," she replied. "What you have promised me is enough. Now I feel
that I am saved. Our house, you said so, we are in our own house here.
If the creditors will not believe me when I tell them to have
patience--"

"They will believe you," said Vaudrey. "Come, we will find the means--On
my signature, any one will lend me money."

It seemed that Marianne was expecting this word _money_, coarse but
eloquent, in order to tell Vaudrey that an old friend, Claire Dujarrier,
was on intimate terms with a certain Adolphe Gochard, who upon the
endorsement of a responsible person, would certainly advance a hundred
thousand francs that he had at this moment lying idle. Gochard only
needed a bill of exchange in his favor for one hundred thousand francs
at three months' date, plus interest at five per cent. This Gochard was
a very straightforward capitalist, who did not make it a business to
lend money, but merely to oblige. It was Madame Dujarrier who had
introduced him and Marianne would have already availed herself of his
courtesy, if she had believed herself able to repay it at the appointed
date.

"And where does this Monsieur Gochard live?" Vaudrey promptly asked.

"Oh! it would not be necessary for you to go to see him," replied
Marianne. "On receipt of a bill of exchange from me, Madame Dujarrier
would undertake to let me have a hundred thousand francs from hand to
hand."

"A hu