d me, five years
ago, he was not what he is now; he was a railway clerk. I was a
working-girl; yes, I was a seamstress. Then it was all right; we used to
walk together, and we went to the theatre; he did not know any one. It is
different now. You see, if the Baroness Dinati should see me on his arm,
she would not bow to him, perhaps."

"You are mistaken, Madame," said the Hungarian, gently. "You are the one
who should be bowed to first."

She did not understand, but she felt that a compliment was intended, and
she blushed very red, not daring to say any more, and wondering if she
had not chatted too much, as Jacquemin reproached her with doing almost
every day.

"Does Monsieur Jacquemin go often to the theatre?" asked Andras, after a
moment's pause.

"Yes; he is obliged to do so."

"And you?"

"Sometimes. Not to the first nights, of course. One has to dress
handsomely for them. But Paul gives me tickets, oh, as many as I want!
When the plays are no longer drawing money, I go with the neighbors. But
I prefer to stay at home and see to my babies; when I am sitting in the
theatre, and they are left in charge of the concierge, I think, Suppose
anything should happen to them! And that idea takes away all my pleasure.
Still, if Paul stayed here--but he can not; he has his writing to do in
the evenings. Poor fellow, he works so hard! Well!" with a sigh, "I don't
think that he will be back to-day. The children will eat his beefsteak,
that's all; it won't do them any harm."

As she spoke, she took some pieces of meat from an almost empty cupboard,
and placed them on the table, excusing herself for doing so before Zilah.

And he contemplated, with an emotion which every word of the little woman
increased, this poor, miserable apartment, where the wife lived, taking
care of her children, while the husband, Monsieur Puck or Monsieur
Gavroche, paraded at the fancy fairs or at the theatres; figured at the
races; tasted the Baroness Dinati's wines, caring only for Johannisberg
with the blue and gold seal of 1862; and gave to Potel and Chabot, in his
articles, lessons in gastronomy.

Then Madame Jacquemin, feeling instinctively that she had the sympathy of
this sad-faced man who spoke to her in such a gentle voice, related her
life to him with the easy confidence which poor people, who never see the
great world, possess. She told him, with a tender smile, the entirely
Parisian idyl of the love of the working-girl for the lit