should see you again?"

"_Vous avez un fameux toupet, vous!_" said Zette, half angrily.

He laughed, having been accused of confounded impudence many times
before in the course of his adventurous life.

"If I told my husband he would kill you."

"Precisely. So you're not going to tell him. I adore you. I have come to
protect you. _Foi de Provencal._"

"The only way to protect me is to prove my innocence."

"And then?"

She drew herself up and looked him straight between the eyes.

"I'll recognize that you have a loyal heart, and will be your very good
friend."

"Mme. Zette," cried Aristide, "I will devote my life to your service.
Tell me the particulars of the affair."

"Ask M. Bocardon." She left him, and sailed out of the room and past the
bureau with her proud head in the air.

If Aristide Pujol had the rapturous idea of proving the innocence of
Mme. Zette, triumphing over the fat pig of a husband, and eventually, in
a fantastic fashion, carrying off the insulted and spotless lady to some
bower of delight (the castle in Perpignan--why not?), you must blame,
not him, but Provence, whose sons, if not devout, are frankly pagan.
Sometimes they are both.

M. Bocardon sat in his bureau, pretending to do accounts and tracing
columns of figures with a huge, trembling forefinger. He looked the
picture of woe. Aristide decided to bide his opportunity. He went out
into the streets again, now with the object of killing time. The
afternoon had advanced, and trees and buildings cast cool shadows in
which one could walk with comfort; and Nimes, clear, bright city of wide
avenues and broad open spaces, instinct too with the grandeur that was
Rome's, is an idler's Paradise. Aristide knew it well; but he never
tired of it. He wandered round the Maison Carree, his responsive nature
delighting in the splendour of the Temple, with its fluted Corinthian
columns, its noble entablature, its massive pediment, its perfect
proportions; reluctantly turned down the Boulevard Victor Hugo, past the
Lycee and the Bourse, made the circuit of the mighty, double-arched oval
of the Arena, and then retraced his steps. As he expected, M. Bocardon
had left the bureau. It was the hour of absinthe. The porter named M.
Bocardon's habitual cafe. There, in a morose corner of the terrace,
Aristide found the huge man gloomily contemplating an absurdly small
glass of the bitters known as Dubonnet. Aristide raised his hat, asked
permission to join h