“The next day, I tell all this to M. Vincent; and he says that Amanda is right; that it is not proper for a woman in my position to frequent balls; and that, if I want to go out at night, I can stay.  Get out!  I tell you what, if it hadn’t been for the fine carriage, and all that, I would have cleared out that minute.  Any way, I became disgusted from that moment, and have been more and more ever since; and, if M. Vincent had not himself left, I certainly would.”

“To go where?”

“Anywhere.  Look here, now! do you suppose I need a man to support me!  No, thank Heaven!  Little Zelie, here present, has only to apply to any dressmaker, and she’ll be glad to give her four francs a day to run the machine.  And she’ll be free, at least; and she can laugh and dance as much as she likes.”

M. de Tregars had made a mistake:  he had just discovered it.

Mme. Zelie Cadelle was certainly not particularly virtuous; but she was far from being the woman he expected to meet.

“At any rate,” he said, “you did well to wait patiently.”

“I do not regret it.”

“If you can keep this house—­”

She interrupted him with a great burst of laughter.

“This house!” she exclaimed.  “Why, it was sold long ago, with every thing in it,—­furniture, horses, carriages, every thing except me.  A young gentleman, very well dressed, bought it for a tall girl, who looks like a goose, and has far over a thousand francs of red hair on her head.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Sure as I live, having seen with my own eyes the young swell and his red-headed friend counting heaps of bank-notes to M. Vincent.  They are to move in day after to-morrow; and they have invited me to the house-warming.  But no more of it for me, I thank you!  I am sick and tired of all these people.  And the proof of it is, I am busy packing my things; and lots of them I have too,—­dresses, underclothes, jewelry.  He was a good-natured fellow, old Vincent was, anyhow.  He gave me money enough to buy some furniture.  I have hired a small apartment; and I am going to set up dress-making on my own hook.  And won’t we laugh then! and won’t we have some fun to make up for lost time!  Come, my children, take your places for a quadrille.  Forward two!”

And, bouncing out of her chair, she began sketching out one of those bold cancan steps which astound the policemen on duty in the ball-rooms.

“Bravo!” said M. de Tregars, forcing himself to smile,—­“bravo!”

He saw clearly now what sort of woman was Mme. Zelie Cadelle; how he should speak to her, and what cords he might yet cause to vibrate within her.  He recognized the true daughter of Paris, wayward and nervous, who in the midst of her disorders preserves an instinctive pride; who places her independence far above all the money in the world; who gives, rather than sells, herself; who knows no law but her caprice, no morality but the policeman, no religion but pleasure.