o'clock his ideas were so confused that he could not imagine why the
portress in the Rue de Vendome persisted in sending him to the Rue de la
Lune.

"Mlle. Coralie has gone," said the woman. "She has taken lodgings
elsewhere. She left her address with me on this scrap of paper."

Lucien was too far gone to be surprised at anything. He went back to the
cab which had brought him, and was driven to the Rue de la Lune, making
puns to himself on the name of the street as he went.

The news of the failure of the Panorama-Dramatique had come like a
thunder-clap. Coralie, taking alarm, made haste to sell her furniture
(with the consent of her creditors) to little old Cardot, who installed
Florentine in the rooms at once. The tradition of the house remained
unbroken. Coralie paid her creditors and satisfied the landlord,
proceeding with her "washing-day," as she called it, while Berenice
bought the absolutely indispensable necessaries to furnish a
fourth-floor lodging in the Rue de la Lune, a few doors from the
Gymnase. Here Coralie was waiting for Lucien's return. She had brought
her love unsullied out of the shipwreck and twelve hundred francs.

Lucien, more than half intoxicated, poured out his woes to Coralie and
Berenice.

"You did quite right, my angel," said Coralie, with her arms about his
neck. "Berenice can easily negotiate your bills with Braulard."

The next morning Lucien awoke to an enchanted world of happiness made
about him by Coralie. She was more loving and tender in those days than
she had ever been; perhaps she thought that the wealth of love in her
heart should make him amends for the poverty of their lodging. She
looked bewitchingly charming, with the loose hair straying from under
the crushed white silk handkerchief about her head; there was soft
laughter in her eyes; her words were as bright as the first rays of
sunrise that shone in through the windows, pouring a flood of gold upon
such charming poverty.

Not that the room was squalid. The walls were covered with a sea-green
paper, bordered with red; there was one mirror over the chimney-piece,
and a second above the chest of drawers. The bare boards were covered
with a cheap carpet, which Berenice had bought in spite of Coralie's
orders, and paid for out of her own little store. A wardrobe, with a
glass door and a chest, held the lovers' clothing, the mahogany chairs
were covered with blue cotton stuff, and Berenice had managed to save a
clock