nd forbade me to turn out either her or anybody
else. As if people were not masters in their own house!"

"That was perfectly absurd!" objected Maxence, who was determined
to gain the good graces of the landlady.

"Never heard of such a thing!" she went on. "Compel you to lodge
people free! Why not feed them too? In short, she remained so
long, that, after the Commune, she owed me a hundred and eighty
francs. Then she said, that, if I would let her stay, she would
pay me each month in advance, besides the rent, ten francs on the
old account. I agreed, and she has already paid up twenty francs."

"Poor girl!" said Maxence.

But Mme. Fortin shrugged her shoulders.

"Really," she replied, "I don't pity her much; for, if she only
wanted, in forty-eight hours I should be paid, and she would have
something else on her back besides that old black rag. I tell her
every day, 'In these days, my child, there is but one reliable
friend, which is better than all others, and which must be taken as
it comes, without making any faces if it is a little dirty: that's
money.' But all my preaching goes for nothing. I might as well
sing."

Maxence was listening with intense delight.

"In short, what does she do?" he asked.

"That's more than I know," replied Mme. Fortin. "The young lady
has not much to say. All I know is, that she leaves every morning
bright and early, and rarely gets home before eleven. On Sunday
she stays home, reading; and sometimes, in the evening, she goes
out, always alone, to some theatre or ball. Ah! she is an odd
one, I tell you!"

A lodger who came in interrupted the landlady; and Maxence walked
off dreaming how he could manage to make the acquaintance of his
pretty and eccentric neighbor.

Because he had once spent some hundreds of napoleons in the company
of young ladies with yellow chignons, Maxence fancied himself a man
of experience, and had but little faith in the virtue of a girl of
twenty, living alone in a hotel, and left sole mistress of her own
fancy. He began to watch for every occasion of meeting her; and,
towards the last of the month, he had got so far as to bow to her,
and to inquire after her health.

But, the first time he ventured to make love to her, she looked at
him head to foot, and turned her back upon him with so much contempt,
that he remained, his mouth wide open, perfectly stupefied.

"I am losing my time like a fool," he thought.

Great, then, was his su