self to the heights of a matured happiness, or to
plunge herself into bald-headed abysses of despair. Yes, Monsieur, that
far apart are her choosings!" And Madame Gauthier added, in communion
with herself as she passed to the street with her basket: "As for me, it
would be that adorable Major by a thousand times!"

* * * * *

As was of reason, since hers was the first place in the matter, Madame
Jolicoeur herself carried on debatings--in the portion of her heart
that had escaped complete devastation--identical in essence with the
debatings of her case which went up and down the Rue Bausset.

Not having become devote--in the year and more of opportunity open to
her for a turn in that direction--one horn of her original dilemma had
been eliminated, so to say, by atrophy. Being neglected, it had
withered: with the practical result that out of her very indecisions had
come a decisive choice. But to her new dilemma, of which the horns were
the Major and the Notary--in the privacy of her secret thoughts she made
no bones of admitting that this dilemma confronted her--the atrophying
process was not applicable; at least, not until it could be applied with
a sharp finality. Too long dallied with, it very well might lead to the
atrophy of both of them in dudgeon; and thence onward, conceivably, to
her being left to cling only to the Shah de Perse for all the remainder
of her days.

Therefore, to the avoidance of that too radical conclusion, Madame
Jolicoeur engaged in her debatings briskly: offering to herself, in
effect, the balanced arguments advanced by Monsieur Fromagin in favour
equally of Monsieur Peloux and of the Major Gontard; taking as her own,
with moderating exceptions and emendations, the views of Madame Gauthier
as to the meagreness and pallid baldness of the one and the sturdiness
and gallant bearing of the other; considering, from the standpoint of
her own personal knowledge in the premises, the Notary's disposition
toward a secretive reticence that bordered upon severity, in contrast
with the cordially frank and debonair temperament of the Major; and, at
the back of all, keeping well in mind the fundamental truths that
opportunity ever is evanescent and that time ever is on the wing.

As the result of her debatings, and not less as the result of experience
gained in her earlier campaigning, Madame Jolicoeur took up a
strategic position nicely calculated to inflame the desire for