“I should not be surprised if she were angry with me for what I’ve done,” he thought.

The evening being quite chilly, he had lighted a few sticks; and, sitting by the fireside, he was waiting, his mind filled with vague hopes.  It seemed to him that his neighbor could not absolve herself from coming to thank him; and he was listening intently to all the noises of the house, starting at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and at the slamming of doors.  Ten times, at least, he went out on tiptoe to lean out of the window on the landing, to make sure that there was no light in Mlle. Lucienne’s room.  At eleven o’clock she had not yet come home; and he was deliberating whether he would not start out in quest of information, when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in!” he cried, in a voice choked with emotion.  Mlle. Lucienne came in.  She was somewhat paler than usual, but calm and perfectly self-possessed.  Having bowed without the slightest shade of embarrassment, she laid upon the mantel-piece the thirty five-franc-notes which Maxence had thrown down to the Fortins; and, in her most natural tone,

“Here are your hundred and fifty francs, sir,” she uttered.  “I am more grateful than I can express for your prompt kindness in lending them to me; but I did not need them.”

Maxence had risen from his seat, and was making every effort to control his own feelings.

“Still,” he began, “after what I heard—­”

“Yes,” she interrupted, “Mme. Fortin and her husband were trying to frighten me.  But they were losing their time.  When, after the Commune, I settled with them the manner in which I would discharge my debt towards them, having a just estimate of their worth, I made them write out and sign our agreement.  Being in the right, I could resist them, and was resisting them when you threw them those hundred and fifty francs.  Having laid hands upon them, they had the pretension to keep them.  That’s what I could not suffer.  Not being able to recover them by main force, I went at once to the commissary of police.  He was luckily at his office.  He is an honest man, who already, once before, helped me out of a scrape.  He listened to me kindly, and was moved by my explanations.  Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, he put on his overcoat, and came with me to see our landlord.  After compelling them to return me your money, he signified to them to observe strictly our agreement, under penalty of incurring his utmost severity.”

Maxence was wonderstruck.

“How could you dare?” he said.

“Wasn’t I in the right?”

“Oh, a thousand times yes!  Still—­”

“What?  Should my right be less respected because I am but a woman?  And, because I have no one to protect me, am I outside the law, and condemned in advance to suffer the iniquitous fancies of every scoundrel?  No, thank Heaven!  Henceforth I shall feel easy.  People like the Fortins, who live off I know not what shameful traffic, have too much to fear from the police to dare to molest me further.”