“Thanks, my dear Cephyse, I know your good heart; but I am not in want of anything.  The little I gain is sufficient for me.”

“You refuse me,” said the Bacchanal Queen, sadly, “because you know that my claim to this money is not honorable—­be it so—­I respect your scruples.  But you will not refuse a service from Jacques; he has been a workman, like ourselves, and comrades should help each other.  Accept it I beseech you, or I shall think you despise me.”

“And I shall think you despise me, if you insist any more upon it, my dear Cephyse,” said Mother Bunch, in a tone at once so mild and firm that the Bacchanal Queen saw that all persuasion would be in vain.  She hung her head sorrowfully, and a tear again trickled down her cheek.

“My refusal grieves you,” said the other, taking her hand; “I am truly sorry—­but reflect—­and you will understand me.”

“You are right,” said the Bacchanal Queen, bitterly, after a moment’s silence; “you cannot accept assistance from my lover—­it was an insult to propose it to you.  There are positions in life so humiliating, that they soil even the good one wishes to do.”

“Cephyse, I did not mean to hurt you—­you know it well.”

“Oh! believe me,” replied the Bacchanal Queen, “gay and giddy as I am, I have sometimes moments of reflection, even in the midst of my maddest joy.  Happily, such moments are rare.”

“And what do you think of, then?”

“Why, that the life I lead is hardly the thing; then resolve to ask Jacques for a small sum of money, just enough to subsist on for a year, and form the plan of joining you, and gradually getting to work again.”

“The idea is a good one; why not act upon it?”

“Because, when about to execute this project, I examined myself sincerely, and my courage failed.  I feel that I could never resume the habit of labor, and renounce this mode of life, sometimes rich, as to day, sometimes precarious,—­but at least free and full of leisure, joyous and without care, and at worst a thousand times preferable to living upon four francs a week.  Not that interest has guided me.  Many times have I refused to exchange a lover, who had little or nothing, for a rich man, that I did not like.  Nor have I ever asked anything for myself.  Jacques has spent perhaps ten thousand francs the last three or four months, yet we only occupy two half-furnished rooms, because we always live out of doors, like the birds:  fortunately, when I first loved him, he had nothing at all, and I had just sold some jewels that had been given me, for a hundred francs, and put this sum in the lottery.  As mad people and fools are always lucky, I gained a prize of four thousand francs.  Jacques was as gay, and light-headed, and full of fun as myself, so we said:  ’We love each other very much, and, as long as this money lasts, we will keep up the racket; when we have no more, one of two things will happen—­either we shall be tired of one another, and so part—­or else we shall love each other still, and then, to remain together, we shall try and get work again; and, if we cannot do so, and yet will not part—­a bushel of charcoal will do our business!’”