seventy-five francs! A fortune. And so he rushed
into that life of questionable pleasures, where so many wretches have
left not only the money which they had, which is nothing, but the
money which they had not, which leads straight to the police-court.

He made friends with those shabby fellows who walk up and down in
front of the Cafe Riche, with an empty stomach, and a tooth-pick
between their teeth. He became a regular customer at those low cafes
of the Boulevards, where plastered girls smile to the men. He
frequented those suspicious table d'hotes where they play baccarat
after dinner on a wine-stained table-cloth, and where the police make
periodical raids. He ate suppers in those night restaurants where
people throw the bottles at each other's heads after drinking their
contents.

Often he remained twenty-four hours without coming to the Rue St.
Gilles; and then Mme. Favoral spent the night in the most fearful
anxiety. Then, suddenly, at some hour when he knew his father to be
absent, he would appear, and, taking his mother to one side:

"I very much want a few louis," he would say in a sheepish tone.

She gave them to him; and she kept giving them so long as she had
any, not, however, without observing timidly to him that Gilberte
and herself could not earn very much.

Until finally one evening, and to a last demand:

"Alas!" she answered sorrowfully, "I have nothing left, and it is
only on Monday that we are to take our work back. Couldn't you
wait until then?"

He could not wait: he was expected for a game. Blind devotion begets
ferocious egotism. He wanted his mother to go out and borrow the
money from the grocer or the butcher. She was hesitating. He spoke
louder.

Then Mlle. Gilberte appeared.

"Have you, then, really no heart?" she said. "It seems to me, that,
if I were a man, I would not ask my mother and sister to work for me."

XII

Gilberte Favoral had just completed her eighteenth year. Rather
tall, slender, her every motion betrayed the admirable proportions
of her figure, and had that grace which results from the harmonious
blending of litheness and strength. She did not strike at first
sight; but soon a penetrating and indefinable charm arose from her
whole person; and one knew not which to admire most,--the exquisite
perfections of her figure, the divine roundness of her neck, her
aerial carriage, or the placid ingenuousness of her attitudes. She
could not be call