er's with big Margot, and only
remember your little playmate of the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. It will
be better than a caprice, it will be something pure that you can keep in
your heart. Do not let us spoil the remembrance of our childhood,
Monsieur Amedee, and let us part good friends."

Before the young man could find a reply, the bell pealed again, and
Rosine gave Amedee a parting smile, lightly kissing the tips of her
fingers, and disappeared behind the doer, which fell together, with a
loud bang. The poet's first movements was one of rage. Giddy weather-cock
of a woman! But he had hardly taken twenty steps upon the sidewalk before
he said to himself, with a feeling of remorse, "She was right!" He
thought that this poor girl had kept in one corner of her heart a shadow
of reserve and modesty, and he was happy to feel rise within him a sacred
respect for woman!

Amedee, my good fellow, you are quite worthless as a man of pleasure. You
had better give it up!

CHAPTER XII

SOCIAL TRIUMPHS

For one month now Amedee Violette's volume of verses, entitled Poems from
Nature, had embellished with its pale-blue covers the shelves of the
book-shops. The commotion raised by the book's success, and the favorable
criticisms given by the journals, had not yet calmed down at the Cafe de
Seville.

This emotion, let it be understood, did not exist except among the
literary men. The politicians disdained poets and poetry, and did not
trouble them selves over such commonplace matters. They had affairs of a
great deal more importance to determine the overthrow of the government
first, then to remodel the map of Europe! What was necessary to over
throw the Empire? First, conspiracy; second, barricades. Nothing was
easier than to conspire. Every body conspired at the Seville. It is the
character of the French, who are born cunning, but are light and
talkative, to conspire in public places. As soon as one of our
compatriots joins a secret society his first care is to go to his
favorite restaurant and to confide, under a bond of the most absolute
secrecy, to his most intimate friend, what he has known for about five
minutes, the aim of the conspiracy, names of the actors, the day, hour,
and place of the rendezvous, the passwords and countersigns. A little
while after he has thus relieved himself, he is surprised that the police
interfere and spoil an enterprise that has been prepared with so much
mystery and discretion. It wa