othing; no, _nothing_. But I can't help fancying she
thinks I said _something_, and that's what makes me miserable."

So Claude assured me as I closely cross-questioned him on the subject of
that day's conversation. Something had happened since to make him revert
to the many-cushioned divan with uneasiness. He had gone, much against
his inclination, on a visit to his uncle's.

"I know it's a guet-apens, a trap," he had said to me. "The old story;
he wants to marry me to some money-bag. Anyway, he's too late now; I'm
not in the market. For all that I wish I had Jeanne down there to help
me beat off the enemy with her Turkish scimitar. Bother matrimony! Why
must we always be thinking of it? As if loving and being loved wasn't
heavenly enough by itself. And why must we always go a-hunting in
so-called society? Don't you think we ought to stick to our Quartier
Latin and take a spouse of our own Bohemian type, instead of pottering
about in swell salons and falling in love with some fine lady who will
expect a fellow to go about disguised as a gentleman for the rest of his
natural life?"

Such were his sentiments before he started. Four days afterwards he
returned in love with a beautiful woman, and quite disposed to make a
gentleman, or even a fool, of himself for her sake.

I happened to know her. Her name was Olga Rabachot. Her father was a
Pole, one of those ill-fated noblemen who died for their country, whose
estates were sequestrated, and whose fortune went to swell the coffers
of the Russian Treasury. The mother and daughter settled in Paris. I
suppose they lived in a garret, and gave music lessons, after the style
of good Polish refugees; but I really know nothing about it, and
probably only derive my impressions from the circumstance that the
mother sang and the daughter played one evening when I was introduced
to them at the house of Hittorff, the famous architect of the Place de
la Concorde. A short time afterwards it was rumoured that a Monsieur
Rabachot, an elderly gentleman who had made a fortune in business, had
become much attracted by the charms and graces of the mother, Madame
Somethingiska. This proved to be true, but only inasmuch as he saw in
her an eligible mother-in-law. We soon heard to our surprise that his
hand and his fortune had been accepted by the daughter, the younger
_iska_.

The curiously assorted couple enjoyed but a brief term of matrimonial
bliss, or whatever else it may have been. Bef