en her tongue."

"Madame de Bergenheim," he replied, emphasizing each word, "is such a
good woman, so sensible and so pretty!"

"Mon Dieu! say that you love her at once, then--that'll be plain talk,"
exclaimed Reine, suddenly disengaging herself from the arm which was
still about her waist. "A great lady who has her carriages and footmen in
livery is a conquest to boast of! While a country girl, who has only her
virtue--"

She lowered her eyes with an air of affected modesty, and did not finish
her sentence.

"A virtue which grants a rendezvous at the end of three days'
acquaintance, and in the depths of the woods! That is amusing!" thought
the artist.

"Still, you will not be the first of the fine lady's lovers," she
continued, raising her head and trying to conceal her vexation under an
ironical air.

"These are falsehoods."

"Falsehoods, when I tell you that I know what I am speaking about!
Lambernier is not a liar."

"Lambernier is not a liar?" repeated a harsh, hoarse voice, which seemed
to come from the cavity of the tree under which they were seated. "Who
has said that Lambernier was a liar?"

At the same moment, the carpenter in person suddenly appeared upon the
scene. He stood before the amazed pair with his brown coat thrown over
his shoulders, as usual, and his broad-brimmed gray hat pulled down over
his ears, gazing at them with his deep, ugly eyes and a sardonic laugh
escaping from his lips.

Mademoiselle Reine uttered a shriek as if she had seen Satan rise up from
the ground at her feet; Marillac rose with a bound and seized his whip.

"You are a very insolent fellow," said he, in his ringing bass voice.
"Go your way!"

"I receive no such orders," replied the workman, in a tone which
justified the epithet which had just been bestowed upon him; "we are upon
public ground, and I have a right to be here as well as you."

"If you do not take to your heels at once," said the artist, becoming
purple with rage, "I will cut your face in two."

"Apples are sometimes cut in two," said Lambernier, sneeringly advancing
his face with an air of bravado. "My face is not afraid of your whip; you
can not frighten me because you are a gentleman and I am a workman! I
snap my fingers at bourgeois like--"

This time he did not have time to finish his comparison; a blow from the
whip cut him in the face and made him reel in spite of himself.

"By heaven!" he exclaimed, in a voice like thunder, "may I lose m