She had recently refused the hand of Monsieur Lebigre, who had at last ventured upon a formal proposal.  For two months past he had given the Mehudins a bottle of some liqueur every Sunday.  It was Rose who brought it, and she was always charged with a compliment for La Normande, some pretty speech which she faithfully repeated, without appearing in the slightest degree embarrassed by the peculiar commission.  When Monsieur Lebigre was rejected, he did not pine, but to show that he took no offence and was still hopeful, he sent Rose on the following Sunday with two bottles of champagne and a large bunch of flowers.  She gave them into the handsome fish-girl’s own hands, repeating, as she did so, the wine dealer’s prose madrigal: 

“Monsieur Lebigre begs you to drink this to his health, which has been greatly shaken by you know what.  He hopes that you will one day be willing to cure him, by being for him as pretty and as sweet as these flowers.”

La Normande was much amused by the servant’s delighted air.  She kissed her as she spoke to her of her master, and asked her if he wore braces, and snored at nights.  Then she made her take the champagne and flowers back with her.  “Tell Monsieur Lebigre,” said she, “that he’s not to send you here again.  It quite vexes me to see you coming here so meekly, with your bottles under your arms.”

“Oh, he wishes me to come,” replied Rose, as she went away.  “It is wrong of you to distress him.  He is a very handsome man.”

La Normande, however, was quite conquered by Florent’s affectionate nature.  She continued to follow Muche’s lessons of an evening in the lamplight, indulging the while in a dream of marrying this man who was so kind to children.  She would still keep her fish stall, while he would doubtless rise to a position of importance in the administrative staff of the markets.  This dream of hers, however, was scarcely furthered by the tutor’s respectful bearing towards her.  He bowed to her, and kept himself at a distance, when she have liked to laugh with him, and love him as she knew how to love.  But it was just this covert resistance on Florent’s part which continually brought her back to the dream of marrying him.  She realised that he lived in a loftier sphere than her own; and by becoming his wife she imagined that her vanity would reap no little satisfaction.

She was greatly surprised when she learned the history of the man she loved.  He had never mentioned a word of those things to her; and she scolded him about it.  His extraordinary adventures only increased her tenderness for him, and for evenings together she made him relate all that had befallen him.  She trembled with fear lest the police should discover him; but he reassured her, saying that the matter was now too old for the police to trouble their heads about it.  One evening he told her of the woman on the Boulevard Montmartre, the woman in the pink bonnet, whose blood had dyed his hands.  He still