le.

Already she had again turned towards him.

"What a face you are making!" she said. "Are you jealous of the
fiery Costeclar, by chance?"

"No, mademoiselle, no!"

"Then, why don't you want him to succeed in his love? But he will,
you'll see! Five hundred francs on Costeclar! Do you take it?
No? I am sorry. It's twenty-five napoleons lost for me. I know
very well that Mlle.--what's her name?"

"Gilberte."

"Hallo! a nice name for a cashier's daughter! I am aware that she
once sent that poor Costeclar and his offer to--Chaillot. But she
had resources then; whilst now--It's stupid as it can be; but
people have to eat!"

"There are still women, mademoiselle, capable of starving to death."

M. de Tregars now felt satisfied. It seemed evident to him that
they had somehow got wind of his intentions; that Mlle. de Thaller
had been sent to feel the ground; and that she only attacked Mlle.
Gilberte in order to irritate him, and compel him, in a moment of
anger, to declare himself.

"Bash!" she said, "Mlle. Favoral is like all the others. If she
had to select between the amiable Costeclar and a charcoal furnace,
it is not the furnace she would take."

At all times, Marius de Tregars disliked Mlle. Cesarine to a supreme
degree; but at this moment, without the pressing desire he had to
see the Baron and Baroness de Thaller, he would have withdrawn.

"Believe me, mademoiselle," he uttered coldly. "Spare a poor girl
stricken by a most cruel misfortune. Worse might happen to you."

"To me! And what the mischief do you suppose can happen me?"

"Who knows?"

She started to her feet so violently, that she upset the piano-stool.

"Whatever it may be," she exclaimed, "I say in advance, I am glad!"

And as M. de Tregars turned his head in some surprise,

"Yes, I am glad!" she repeated, "because it would be a change; and
I am sick of the life I lead. Yes, sick to be eternally and
invariably happy of that same dreary happiness. And to think that
there are idiots who believe that I amuse myself, and who envy my
fate! To think, that, when I ride through the streets, I hear girls
exclaim, whilst looking at me, 'Isn't she lucky?' Little fools!
I'd like to see them in my place. They live, they do. Their
pleasures are not all alike. They have anxieties and hopes, ups
and downs, hours of rain and hours of sunshine; whilst I--always
dead calm! the barometer always at 'Set fair.' What a bore! Do
you kno