t attacked Arthur Papillon on the subject of his love-affairs; for
the young advocate drank many cups of Orleanist tea, going even into the
same drawing-rooms as Beule and Prevost-Paradol, and accompanying
political ladies to the receptions at the Academie Francaise.

"That is where you must make havoc, you rascal!"

But Papillon defends himself with conceited smiles and meaning looks.
According to him--and he puts his two thumbs into the armholes of his
vest--the ambitious must be chaste.

"Abstineo venere," said he, lowering his eyes in a comical manner, for he
did not fear Latin quotations. However, he declared himself very hard to
please in that matter; he dreamed of an Egeria, a superior mind. What he
did not tell them was, that a dressmaker's little errand-girl, with whom
he had tried to converse as he left the law-school, had surveyed him from
head to foot and threatened him with the police.

Upon some new joke of Maurice's, the lawyer gave his amorous programme in
the following terms:

"Understand me, a woman must be as intelligent as Hypatia, and have the
sensibility of Heloise; the smile of a Joconde, and the limbs of an
Antiope; and, even then, if she had not the throat of a Venus de Medicis,
I should not love her."

Without going quite so far, the actor showed himself none the less
exacting. According to his ideas, Deborah, the tragedienne at the
Odeon--a Greek statue!--had too large hands, and the fascinating Blanche
Pompon at the Varietes was a mere wax doll.

Gustave, after all, was the one who is most intractable; excited by the
Bordeaux wine--a glass of mineral water would be best for him--he
proclaimed that the most beautiful creature was agreeable to him only for
one day; that it was a matter of principle, and that he had never made
but one exception, in favor of the illustrious dancer at the Casino
Cadet, Nina l'Auvergnate, because she was so comical! "Oh! my friends,
she is so droll, she is enough to kill one!"

"To kill one!" Yes! my dear Monsieur Gustave, that is what will happen to
you one of these fine mornings, if you do not decide to lead a more
reasonable life--and on the condition that you pass your winters in the
South, also!

Poor Amedee was in torture; all his illusions--desires and sentiments
blended--were cruelly wounded. Then, he had just discovered a deplorable
faculty; a new cause for being unhappy. The sight of this foolishness
made him suffer. How these coarse young men l