were casting their lines.  After all, it was not she who had betrayed Florent.  This reflection suddenly occurred to her and astonished her.  Would she have been guilty of a wicked action, then, if she had been his betrayer?  She was quite perplexed; surprised at the possibility of her conscience having deceived her.  Those anonymous letters seemed extremely base.  She herself had gone openly to the authorities, given her name, and saved innocent people from being compromised.  Then at the sudden thought of old Gradelle’s fortune she again examined herself, and felt ready to throw the money into the river if such a course should be necessary to remove the blight which had fallen on the pork shop.  No, she was not avaricious, she was sure she wasn’t; it was no thought of money that had prompted her in what she had just done.  As she crossed the Pont au Change she grew quite calm again, recovering all her superb equanimity.  On the whole, it was much better, she felt, that others should have anticipated her at the Prefecture.  She would not have to deceive Quenu, and she would sleep with an easier conscience.

“Have you booked the seats?” Quenu asked her when she returned home.

He wanted to see the tickets, and made Lisa explain to him the exact position the seats occupied in the dress-circle.  Lisa had imagined that the police would make a descent upon the house immediately after receiving her information, and her proposal to go to the theatre had only been a wily scheme for getting Quenu out of the way while the officers were arresting Florent.  She had contemplated taking him for an outing in the afternoon—­one of those little jaunts which they occasionally allowed themselves.  They would then drive in an open cab to the Bois de Boulogne, dine at a restaurant, and amuse themselves for an hour or two at some cafe concern.  But there was no need to go out now, she thought; so she spent the rest of the day behind her counter, with a rosy glow on her face, and seeming brighter and gayer, as though she were recovering from some indisposition.

“You see, I told you it was fresh air you wanted!” exclaimed Quenu.  “Your walk this morning has brightened you up wonderfully!”

“No, indeed,” she said after a pause, again assuming her look of severity; “the streets of Paris are not at all healthy places.”

In the evening they went to the Gaite to see the performance of “La Grace de Dieu.”  Quenu, in a frock-coat and drab gloves, with his hair carefully pomatumed and combed, was occupied most of the time in hunting for the names of the performers in the programme.  Lisa looked superb in her low dress as she rested her hands in their tight-fitting white gloves on the crimson velvet balustrade.  They were both of them deeply affected by the misfortunes of Marie.  The commander, they thought, was certainly a desperate villain; while Pierrot made them laugh from the first moment of his appearance on the stage.  But at last Madame Quenu cried.  The departure of the child, the prayer in the maiden’s chamber, the return of the poor mad creature, moistened her eyes with gentle tears, which she brushed away with her handkerchief.