a
love speech over a fine sirloin roast.

Sometimes, in going or coming from the office, Amedee would go to see
his friend Maurice, who had obtained from Madame Roger permission to
install himself in the Latin Quarter so as to be near the law school.

In a very low-studded first-floor room in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince,
Amedee perceived through a cloud of tobacco-smoke the elegant Maurice
in a scarlet jacket lying upon a large divan. Everything was rich and
voluptuous, heavy carpets, handsomely bound volumes of poems, an open
piano, and an odor of perfumery mingled with that of cigarettes. Upon
the velvet-covered mantel Mademoiselle Irma, the favorite of the master
of the apartment, had left the last fashionable novel, marking, with
one of her hairpins, where she had left off reading. Amedee spent a
delightful hour there. Maurice always greeted him with his joyful, kind
manner, in which one hardly minded the slight shade of patronage.
He walked up and down his room, expanding his finely moulded chest,
lighting and throwing away his cigarettes, seating himself for two
minutes at the piano and playing one of Chopin's sad strains, opening
a book and reading a page, showing his albums to his friend, making
him repeat some of his poems, applauding him and touching lightly upon
different subjects, and charming Amedee more and more by his grace and
manners.

However, Amedee could not enjoy his friend much, as he rarely found him
alone. Every few moments--the key was in the door--Maurice's comrades,
young pleasure-seekers like himself, but more vulgar, not having his
gentlemanly bearing and manners, would come to talk with him of some
projected scheme or to remind him of some appointment for the evening.

Often, some one of them, with his hat upon his head, would dash off a
polka, after placing his lighted cigar upon the edge of the piano. These
fast fellows frightened Amedee a little, as he had the misfortune to be
fastidious.

After these visitors had left, Maurice would ask his friend to dinner,
but the door would open again, and Mademoiselle Irma, in her furs and
small veil--a comical little face--would enter quickly and throw her
arms about Amedee's neck, kissing him, while rumpling his hair with her
gloved hands.

"Bravo! we will all three dine together."

No! Amedee is afraid of Mademoiselle Irma, who has already thrown her
mantle upon the sofa and crowned the bronze Venus de Milo with her otter
toque. The young