“What is the matter, monsieur?” said the Countess, putting out her foot from below her skirt to rest it on a velvet cushion.  “I thought, I hoped, I was quite forgotten.”

“If I should reply Never, you would refuse to believe me,” said Lousteau, who remained standing, or walked about the room, chewing the flowers he plucked from the flower-stands full of plants that scented the room.

For a moment silence reigned.  Madame de la Baudraye, studying Lousteau, saw that he was dressed as the most fastidious dandy might have been.

“You are the only person in the world who can help me, or hold out a plank to me—­for I am drowning, and have already swallowed more than one mouthful——­” said he, standing still in front of Dinah, and seeming to yield to an overpowering impulse.  “Since you see me here, it is because my affairs are going to the devil.”

“That is enough,” said she; “I understand.”

There was another pause, during which Lousteau turned away, took out his handkerchief, and seemed to wipe away a tear.

“How much do you want, Etienne,” she went on in motherly tones.  “We are at this moment old comrades; speak to me as you would to—­to Bixiou.”

“To save my furniture from vanishing into thin air to-morrow morning at the auction mart, eighteen hundred francs!  To repay my friends, as much again!  Three quarters’ rent to the landlord—­whom you know.—­My ‘uncle’ wants five hundred francs—­”

“And you!—­to live on?”

“Oh!  I have my pen——­”

“It is heavier to lift than any one could believe who reads your articles,” said she, with a subtle smile.—­“I have not such a sum as you need, but come to-morrow at eight; the bailiff will surely wait till nine, especially if you bring him away to pay him.”

She must, she felt, dismiss Lousteau, who affected to be unable to look at her; she herself felt such pity as might cut every social Gordian knot.

“Thank you,” she added, rising and offering her hand to Lousteau.  “Your confidence has done me good!  It is long indeed since my heart has known such joy——­”

Lousteau took her hand and pressed it tenderly to his heart.

“A drop of water in the desert—­and sent by the hand of an angel!  God always does things handsomely!”

He spoke half in jest and half pathetically; but, believe me, as a piece of acting it was as fine as Talma’s in his famous part of Leicester, which was played throughout with touches of this kind.  Dinah felt his heart beating through his coat; it was throbbing with satisfaction, for the journalist had had a narrow escape from the hulks of justice; but it also beat with a very natural fire at seeing Dinah rejuvenescent and restored by wealth.

Madame de la Baudraye, stealing an examining glance at Etienne, saw that his expression was in harmony with the flowers of love, which, as she thought, had blossomed again in that throbbing heart; she tried to look once into the eyes of the man she had loved so well, but the seething blood rushed through her veins and mounted to her brain.  Their eyes met with the same fiery glow as had encouraged Lousteau on the Quay by the Loire to crumple Dinah’s muslin gown.  The Bohemian put his arm round her waist, she yielded, and their cheeks were touching.