He was not sure whether Bruslart had spoken the truth, he did not much care, yet he felt a twinge of conscience.  It troubled him because he had not much difficulty in salving his conscience as a rule.  It was generally easy to make the ends justify the means.  He had taken no notice of the swaying curtains as he left Bruslart.  He never guessed that a woman stood behind them.  There might have been no prick of conscience had he known of Pauline Vaison.

He entered the baker’s shop in the Rue Valette.  Behind the little counter, on which were a few loaves and pieces of bread, an old woman sat knitting.

“Will you give me the key of those rooms?  I want to see that everything is prepared.”

The old woman fumbled in her pocket and gave him the key without a word.

“She comes to-morrow,” said Latour.  “You will not fail to do as I have asked and look after her well.”

“Never fear; she shall be a pretty bird in a pretty cage.”

Latour paused as he reached the door.  “She is a dear friend, no more nor less than that, and this is a nest, not a cage.  Do you understand?”

The old woman nodded quickly, and when he had gone, chuckled.  She had lived long in the world, knew men well, and the ways of them with women.  There might be some things about Citizen Latour which set him apart from his fellows, but all men were the same concerning women.

Latour crossed the courtyard and went quickly up the stairs to the second floor.  The rooms here corresponded with his own below, yet how different they were.  Everything was fresh and dainty.  Cheap, but pretty, curtains hung before the windows and about the alcove where the bed was.  The furnishing was sufficient, not rich, yet showing taste in the choice; two or three inexpensive prints adorned the walls, and on the toilet table were candlesticks, a china tray, and some cut-glass bottles.  The boards were polished, and here and there was a rug or strip of carpet; the paint was fresh and white—­white was the color note throughout.  Here was the greatest luxury possible to a shallow pocket, very different from Bruslart’s room, yet with a character of its own.  Latour had chosen everything in it with much thought and care.  He had spent hours arranging and rearranging until his sense of the beautiful was satisfied.  Now he altered the position of a rug, and touched a curtain by the bed to make it fall in more graceful folds.  Then he sat down to survey his work as a whole.

Still there was the prick of conscience, not very sharp, indeed, and becoming less persistent as he argued with himself.  The Raymond Latour of to-day was a different man from the old Raymond Latour, the poor student, the nobody.  Was he not mounting the ladder rung by rung, higher and higher every day?  He had been listened to in the Legislative Assembly, applauded; he was a man of mark in the Convention.  He was still poor, and his ambition was not towards