And, as Maxence was looking at her with immense surprise,

“That seems strange to you, doesn’t it?” she resumed.  “A girl of eighteen, without a sou, free as air, very pretty, and yet virtuous in the midst of Paris.  Probably you don’t believe it, or, if you do, you just think, ‘What on earth does she make by it?’

“And really you are right; for, after all, who cares, and who thinks any the more of me, if I work sixteen hours a day to remain virtuous?  But it’s a fancy of my own; and don’t imagine for a moment that I am deterred by any scruples, or by timidity, or ignorance.  No, no!  I believe in nothing.  I fear nothing; and I know as much as the oldest libertines, the most vicious, and the most depraved.  And I don’t say that I have not been tempted sometimes, when, coming home from work, I’d see some of them coming out of the restaurants, splendidly dressed, on their lover’s arm, and getting into carriages to go to the theatre.  There were moments when I was cold and hungry, and when, not knowing where to sleep, I wandered all night through the streets like a lost dog.  There were hours when I felt sick of all this misery, and when I said to myself, that, since it was my fate to end in the hospital, I might as well make the trip gayly.  But what!  I should have had to traffic my person, to sell myself!”

She shuddered, and in a hoarse voice,

“I would rather die,” she said.

It was difficult to reconcile words such as these with certain circumstances of Mlle. Lucienne’s existence,—­her rides around the lake, for instance, in that carriage that came for her two or three times a week; her ever renewed costumes, each time more eccentric and more showy.  But Maxence was not thinking of that.  What she told him he accepted as absolutely true and indisputable.  And he felt penetrated with an almost religious admiration for this young and beautiful girl, possessed of so much vivid energy, who alone, through the hazards, the perils, and the temptations of Paris, had succeeded in protecting and defending herself.

“And yet,” he said, “without suspecting it, you had a friend near you.”

She shuddered; and a pale smile flitted upon her lips.  She knew well enough what friendship means between a youth of twenty-five and a girl of eighteen.

“A friend!” she murmured.

Maxence guessed her thought; and, in all the sincerity of his soul,

“Yes, a friend,” he repeated, “a comrade, a brother.”  And thinking to touch her, and gain her confidence,

“I could understand you,” he added; “for I, too, have been very unhappy.”

But he was singularly mistaken.  She looked at him with an astonished air, and slowly,

“You unhappy!” she uttered,—­“you who have a family, relations, a mother who adores you, a sister.”  Less excited, Maxence might have wondered how she had found this out, and would have concluded that she must feel some interest in him, since she had doubtless taken the trouble of getting information.