“Who would ever imagine,” thought she, “that this young gentleman walking away yonder is my affianced husband, and that the day is perhaps not far, when, having become his wife, I shall lean upon his arm?  Who would think that all my thoughts belong to him, that it is for my sake that he has given up the ambition of his life, and is now prosecuting another object?  Who would suspect that it is for Gilberte Favoral’s sake that the Marquis de Tregars is walking in the Rue St. Gilles?”

And, indeed, Marius did deserve some credit for these walks; for winter had come, spreading a thick coat of mud over the pavement of all those little streets which are always forgotten by the street-cleaners.

The cashier’s home had resumed its habits of before the war, its drowsy monotony scarcely disturbed by the Saturday dinner, by M. Desclavettes’ naivetes or old Desormeaux’s puns.

Maxence, in the mean time, had ceased to live with his parents.  He had returned to Paris immediately after the Commune; and, feeling no longer in the humor to submit to the paternal despotism, he had taken a small apartment on the Boulevard du Temple; but, at the pressing instance of his mother, he had consented to come every night to dine at the Rue St. Gilles.

Faithful to his oath, he was working hard, though without getting on very fast.  The moment was far from propitious; and the occasion, which he had so often allowed to escape, did not offer itself again.  For lack of any thing better, he had kept his clerkship at the railway; and, as two hundred francs a month were not quite sufficient for his wants, he spent a portion of his nights copying documents for M. Chapelain’s successor.

“What do you need so much money for?” his mother said to him when she noticed his eyes a little red.

“Every thing is so dear!” he answered with a smile, which was equivalent to a confidence, and yet which Mme. Favoral did not understand.

He had, nevertheless, managed to pay all his debts, little by little.  The day when, at last, he held in his hand the last receipted bill, he showed it proudly to his father, begging him to find him a place at the Mutual Credit, where, with infinitely less trouble, he could earn so much more.

M. Favoral commenced to giggle.

“Do you take me for a fool, like your mother?” he exclaimed.  “And do you think I don’t know what life you lead?”

“My life is that of a poor devil who works as hard as he can.”

“Indeed!  How is it, then, that women are constantly seen at your house, whose dresses and manners are a scandal in the neighborhood?”

“You have been deceived, father.”

“I have seen.”

“It is impossible.  Let me explain.”

“No, you would have your trouble for nothing.  You are, and you will ever remain, the same; and it would be folly on my part to introduce into an office where I enjoy the esteem of all, a fellow, who, some day or other, will be fatally dragged into the mud by some lost creature.”