ld only stay and work with us! We are about to bring out a periodical
in which justice and truth shall never be violated; we will spread
doctrines that, perhaps, will be of real service to mankind----"

"You will not have a single subscriber," Lucien broke in with
Machiavellian wisdom.

"There will be five hundred of them," asserted Michel Chrestien, "but
they will be worth five hundred thousand."

"You will need a lot of capital," continued Lucien.

"No, only devotion," said d'Arthez.

"Anybody might take him for a perfumer's assistant," burst out Michel
Chrestien, looking at Lucien's head, and sniffing comically. "You were
seen driving about in a very smart turnout with a pair of thoroughbreds,
and a mistress for a prince, Coralie herself."

"Well, and is there any harm in it?"

"You would not say that if you thought that there was no harm in it,"
said Bianchon.

"I could have wished Lucien a Beatrice," said d'Arthez, "a noble woman,
who would have been a help to him in life----"

"But, Daniel," asked Lucien, "love is love wherever you find it, is it
not?"

"Ah!" said the republican member, "on that one point I am an aristocrat.
I could not bring myself to love a woman who must rub shoulders with all
sorts of people in the green-room; whom an actor kisses on stage; she
must lower herself before the public, smile on every one, lift her
skirts as she dances, and dress like a man, that all the world may
see what none should see save I alone. Or if I loved such a woman, she
should leave the stage, and my love should cleanse her from the stain of
it."

"And if she would not leave the stage?"

"I should die of mortification, jealousy, and all sorts of pain. You
cannot pluck love out of your heart as you draw a tooth."

Lucien's face grew dark and thoughtful.

"When they find out that I am tolerating Camusot, how they will despise
me," he thought.

"Look here," said the fierce republican, with humorous fierceness, "you
can be a great writer, but a little play-actor you shall never be," and
he took up his hat and went out.

"He is hard, is Michel Chrestien," commented Lucien.

"Hard and salutary, like the dentist's pincers," said Bianchon. "Michel
foresees your future; perhaps in the street, at this moment, he is
thinking of you with tears in his eyes."

D'Arthez was kind, and talked comfortingly, and tried to cheer
Lucien. The poet spent an hour with his friends, then he went, but
his conscience treat