---Well, my
beauty, I offer you my hand for a dive together. It is one way of ending
matters.

"But consider a moment. Would it not be better to live and say to
yourself again and again 'This fine fortune, this happy family'--for
he will have children--children!--Have you ever thought of the joy of
running your fingers through the hair of his children?"

Esther closed her eyes with a little shiver.

"Well, as you gaze on that structure of happiness, you may say to
yourself, 'This is my doing!'"

There was a pause, and the two looked at each other.

"This is what I have tried to make out of such despair as saw no issue
but the river," said Carlos. "Am I selfish? That is the way to love! Men
show such devotion to none but kings! But I have anointed Lucien king.
If I were riveted for the rest of my days to my old chain, I fancy I
could stay there resigned so long as I could say, 'He is gay, he is at
Court.' My soul and mind would triumph, while my carcase was given over
to the jailers! You are a mere female; you love like a female! But in
a courtesan, as in all degraded creatures, love should be a means to
motherhood, in spite of Nature, which has stricken you with barrenness!

"If ever, under the skin of the Abbe Carlos Herrera, any one were to
detect the convict I have been, do you know what I would do to avoid
compromising Lucien?"

Esther awaited the reply with some anxiety.

"Well," he said after a brief pause, "I would die as the Negroes
do--without a word. And you, with all your airs will put folks on my
traces. What did I require of you?--To be La Torpille again for six
months--for six weeks; and to do it to clutch a million.

"Lucien will never forget you. Men do not forget the being of whom they
are reminded day after day by the joy of awaking rich every morning.
Lucien is a better fellow than you are. He began by loving Coralie. She
died--good; but he had not enough money to bury her; he did not do as
you did just now, he did not faint, though he is a poet; he wrote six
rollicking songs, and earned three hundred francs, with which he paid
for Coralie's funeral. I have those songs; I know them by heart.
Well, then do you too compose your songs: be cheerful, be wild, be
irresistible and--insatiable! You hear me?--Do not let me have to speak
again.

"Kiss papa. Good-bye."

When, half an hour after, Europe went into her mistress' room, she found
her kneeling in front of a crucifix, in the attitude whic