“Why did you accept the money?” Newman asked.

“If I hadn’t,” said M. Nioche, “I should have hated her still more.  That’s what misery is.  No, I haven’t forgiven her.”

“Take care you don’t hurt her!” said Newman, laughing again.  And with this he took his leave.  As he passed along the glazed side of the cafe, on reaching the street, he saw the old man motioning the waiter, with a melancholy gesture, to replenish his glass.

One day, a week after his visit to the Cafe de la Patrie, he called upon Valentin de Bellegarde, and by good fortune found him at home.  Newman spoke of his interview with M. Nioche and his daughter, and said he was afraid Valentin had judged the old man correctly.  He had found the couple hobnobbing together in all amity; the old gentleman’s rigor was purely theoretic.  Newman confessed that he was disappointed; he should have expected to see M. Nioche take high ground.

“High ground, my dear fellow,” said Valentin, laughing; “there is no high ground for him to take.  The only perceptible eminence in M. Nioche’s horizon is Montmartre, which is not an edifying quarter.  You can’t go mountaineering in a flat country.”

“He remarked, indeed,” said Newman, “that he has not forgiven her.  But she’ll never find it out.”

“We must do him the justice to suppose he doesn’t like the thing,” Valentin rejoined.  “Mademoiselle Nioche is like the great artists whose biographies we read, who at the beginning of their career have suffered opposition in the domestic circle.  Their vocation has not been recognized by their families, but the world has done it justice.  Mademoiselle Nioche has a vocation.”

“Oh, come,” said Newman, impatiently, “you take the little baggage too seriously.”

“I know I do; but when one has nothing to think about, one must think of little baggages.  I suppose it is better to be serious about light things than not to be serious at all.  This little baggage entertains me.”

“Oh, she has discovered that.  She knows you have been hunting her up and asking questions about her.  She is very much tickled by it.  That’s rather annoying.”

“Annoying, my dear fellow,” laughed Valentin; “not the least!”

“Hanged if I should want to have a greedy little adventuress like that know I was giving myself such pains about her!” said Newman.

“A pretty woman is always worth one’s pains,” objected Valentin.  “Mademoiselle Nioche is welcome to be tickled by my curiosity, and to know that I am tickled that she is tickled.  She is not so much tickled, by the way.”

“You had better go and tell her,” Newman rejoined.  “She gave me a message for you of some such drift.”