e in nothing. I fear nothing; and I know as much as the
oldest libertines, the most vicious, and the most depraved. And I
don't say that I have not been tempted sometimes, when, coming home
from work, I'd see some of them coming out of the restaurants,
splendidly dressed, on their lover's arm, and getting into carriages
to go to the theatre. There were moments when I was cold and hungry,
and when, not knowing where to sleep, I wandered all night through
the streets like a lost dog. There were hours when I felt sick of
all this misery, and when I said to myself, that, since it was my
fate to end in the hospital, I might as well make the trip gayly.
But what! I should have had to traffic my person, to sell myself!"

She shuddered, and in a hoarse voice,

"I would rather die," she said.

It was difficult to reconcile words such as these with certain
circumstances of Mlle. Lucienne's existence,--her rides around the
lake, for instance, in that carriage that came for her two or three
times a week; her ever renewed costumes, each time more eccentric
and more showy. But Maxence was not thinking of that. What she
told him he accepted as absolutely true and indisputable. And he
felt penetrated with an almost religious admiration for this young
and beautiful girl, possessed of so much vivid energy, who alone,
through the hazards, the perils, and the temptations of Paris, had
succeeded in protecting and defending herself.

"And yet," he said, "without suspecting it, you had a friend near
you."

She shuddered; and a pale smile flitted upon her lips. She knew
well enough what friendship means between a youth of twenty-five
and a girl of eighteen.

"A friend!" she murmured.

Maxence guessed her thought; and, in all the sincerity of his soul,

"Yes, a friend," he repeated, "a comrade, a brother." And thinking
to touch her, and gain her confidence,

"I could understand you," he added; "for I, too, have been very
unhappy."

But he was singularly mistaken. She looked at him with an astonished
air, and slowly,

"You unhappy!" she uttered,--"you who have a family, relations, a
mother who adores you, a sister." Less excited, Maxence might have
wondered how she had found this out, and would have concluded that
she must feel some interest in him, since she had doubtless taken
the trouble of getting information.

"Besides, you are a man," she went on; "and I do not understand how
a man can complain. Have you not t