n the midst of all
the litter of opened drawers and scattered trunks, to my great surprise,
I saw Madame Deloche enter.

"Why are you leaving?" she said softly. "Because you love me? I also
love. I love you. Only (and here her voice shook a little) only, I am
married." And she told me her history.

It was a romance of love and desertion. Her husband drank, struck her!
At the end of three years they had separated Her family, of whom she
seemed very proud, held a high position in Paris, but ever since her
marriage had refused to receive her. She was the niece of the Chief
Rabbi. Her sister, the widow of a superior officer, had married for the
second time a Chief Ranger of the woods and forests of Saint-Germain. As
for her, ruined by her husband, she had fortunately had a very thorough
education and possessed some accomplishments, by which she was able to
augment her resources. She gave music lessons in various rich houses
of the Chaussee d'Antin and Faubourg Saint Honore, and gained an ample
livelihood.

The story was touching, although somewhat lengthy, full of the
pretty repetitions, the interminable incidents that entangle feminine
discourse.

[Illustration: p181-192]

Indeed she took several days to relate it. I had hired for us two, a
little house in the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, standing between the silent
streets and peaceful lawns. I could have spent a year listening to and
looking at her, without a thought for my work. She was the first to send
me back to my studio, and I could not prevent her from again taking up
her lessons. I was touched by her concern for the dignity of her life.
I admired the proud spirit, notwithstanding that I could not help being
rather humiliated at her expressed determination to owe nothing save to
her own exertions. We were therefore separated all day long, and only
met in the evening in our little house.

With what joy did I not return home, what impatience I felt when she was
late, and how happy I was when I found her there before me! She would
bring me back bouquets and choice flowers from her journeys to Paris.
Often I pressed upon her some present, but she laughingly said she was
richer than I; and in truth her lessons must have been very well paid,
for she always dressed in an expensively elegant manner, and the black
dresses which, with coquettish care for her complexion and style of
beauty she preferred, had the dull softness of velvet, the brilliancy
of satin and jet, a