“Well, at any rate, cook it for me,” replied Florent, amazed by her anger; “I’ll eat it myself.”

At this she burst out furiously.

“The house isn’t an inn!  Tell those who gave you the fish to cook it for you!  I won’t have my pans tainted and infected!  Take it back again!  Do you hear?”

If he had not gone away with it, she would certainly have seized it and hurled it into the street.  Florent took it to Monsieur Lebigre’s, where Rose was ordered to make a pasty of it; and one evening the pasty was eaten in the little “cabinet,” Gavard, who was present, “standing” some oysters for the occasion.  Florent now gradually came more and more frequently to Monsieur Lebigre’s, till at last he was constantly to be met in the little private room.  He there found an atmosphere of heated excitement in which his political feverishness could pulsate freely.  At times, now, when he shut himself up in his garret to work, the quiet simplicity of the little room irritated him, his theoretical search for liberty proved quite insufficient, and it became necessary that he should go downstairs, sally out, and seek satisfaction in the trenchant axioms of Charvet and the wild outbursts of Logre.  During the first few evenings the clamour and chatter had made him feel ill at ease; he was then quite conscious of their utter emptiness, but he felt a need of drowning his thoughts, of goading himself on to some extreme resolution which might calm his mental disquietude.  The atmosphere of the little room, reeking with the odour of spirits and warm with tobacco smoke, intoxicated him and filled him with peculiar beatitude, prompting a kind of self-surrender which made him willing to acquiesce in the wildest ideas.  He grew attached to those he met there, and looked for them and awaited their coming with a pleasure which increased with habit.  Robine’s mild, bearded countenance, Clemence’s serious profile, Charvet’s fleshless pallor, Logre’s hump, Gavard, Alexandre, and Lacaille, all entered into his life, and assumed a larger and larger place in it.  He took quite a sensual enjoyment in these meetings.  When his fingers closed round the brass knob on the door of the little cabinet it seemed to be animated with life, to warm him, and turn of its own accord.  Had he grasped the supple wrist of a woman he could not have felt a more thrilling emotion.

To tell the truth, very serious things took place in that little room.  One evening, Logre, after indulging in wilder outbursts than usual, banged his fist upon the table, declaring that if they were men they would make a clean sweep of the Government.  And he added that it was necessary they should come to an understanding without further delay, if they desired to be fully prepared when the time for action arrived.  Then they all bent their heads together, discussed the matter in lower tones, and decided to form a little “group,” which should be ready for whatever might happen.  From that day