could, faintly; now giving a few private dancing lessons, now
dressing hair, but ever beat back by the steady detestation of their
imperious patronesses; and, by and by, for want of that priceless
worldly grace known among the flippant as "money-sense," these two poor
children, born of misfortune and the complacent badness of the times,
began to be in want.

Kristian Koppig noticed from his dormer window one day a man standing at
the big archway opposite, and clanking the brass knocker on the wicket
that was in one of the doors. He was a smooth man, with his hair parted
in the middle, and his cigarette poised on a tiny gold holder. He waited
a moment, politely cursed the dust, knocked again, threw his slender
sword-cane under his arm, and wiped the inside of his hat with his
handkerchief.

Madame John held a parley with him at the wicket. 'Tite Poulette was
nowhere seen. He stood at the gate while Madame John went up-stairs.
Kristian Koppig knew him. He knew him as one knows a snake. He was the
manager of the _Salle de Conde_. Presently Madame John returned with a
little bundle, and they hurried off together.

And now what did this mean? Why, by any one of ordinary acuteness the
matter was easily understood, but, to tell the truth, Kristian Koppig
was a trifle dull, and got the idea at once that some damage was being
planned against 'Tite Poulette. It made the gentle Dutchman miserable
not to be minding his own business, and yet--

"But the woman certainly will not attempt"--said he to himself--"no, no!
she cannot." Not being able to guess what he meant, I cannot say whether
she could or not. I know that next day Kristian Koppig, glancing eagerly
over the "_Ami des Lois_," read an advertisement which he had always
before skipped with a frown. It was headed, "_Salle de Conde_," and,
being interpreted, signified that a new dance was to be introduced, the
_Danse de Chinois_, and that _a young lady_ would follow it with the
famous "_Danse du Shawl_."

It was the Sabbath. The young man watched the opposite window steadily
and painfully from early in the afternoon until the moon shone bright;
and from the time the moon shone bright until Madame John!--joy!--Madame
John! and not 'Tite Poulette, stepped through the wicket, much dressed
and well muffled, and hurried off toward the _Rue Conde_. Madame John
was the "young lady;" and the young man's mind, glad to return to its
own unimpassioned affairs, relapsed into quietude