"That depends on how you look at it. For my part, I call it conduct." She was melting. Little by little, her mask of dignity fell. I was now confronted simply with the former chambermaid, expert at all rascalities. Now she had the piggish eye, the fat and flabby movements, the sort of ritual lapping of the mouth characteristic of the procuress, and which I had observed on the lips of "Madame Rebecca Ranvet, Millinery." She repeated: "For my part, I call it conduct." "It! What?" I exclaimed. "Come, Mademoiselle, you are not a beginner, and you are acquainted with life. One can talk with you. It is a question of a single gentleman, already old, not extremely far from Paris, and very rich,--yes, in fact, rich enough. You will keep his house,--something like a governess, do you understand? Such places are very delicate, much in demand, and highly profitable. This one offers a certain future for a woman like you, as intelligent as you are, as pretty as you are,--especially, I repeat, with conduct." This was my ambition. Many times I had built marvelous futures on an old man's fancy, and now this paradise that I had dreamed of was before me, smiling, calling me. By an inexplicable irony of life, by an imbecile contradiction, the cause of which I cannot understand, I squarely refused this good fortune which I had wished for so many times, and which at last presented itself. "An old rake! Oh! no! Besides, men are too disgusting to me,--the old, the young, all of them." For a few seconds Mme. Paulhat-Durand stood in amazement. She had not expected this sally. Resuming her severe and dignified air, which placed so great a distance between the correct _bourgeoise_ that she wished to be and the bohemian girl that I am, she said: "Ah! Mademoiselle, what do you think, then? What do you take me for? What are you imagining?" "I imagine nothing. Only I repeat that I have had enough of men." "Do you really know of whom you are speaking? This gentleman, Mademoiselle, is a very respectable man. He is a member of the Society of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. He has been a royalist deputy." I burst out laughing. "Yes, yes, of course. I know your Saint-Vincent-de-Pauls, and all the devil's saints, and all the deputies. No, thank you!" Then, suddenly, without transition, I asked: "Just what is your old man? To be sure, one more or less will make no difference. It is not a matter of great consequence, after all." But Mme. Paulhat-Durand did not unbend. She declared, in a firm voice: "It is useless, Mademoiselle. You are not the serious woman, the trusty person, that this gentleman needs. I thought you were more suitable. With you, one cannot be sure of anything."