“Anybody might take him for a perfumer’s assistant,” burst out Michel Chrestien, looking at Lucien’s head, and sniffing comically. “You were seen driving about in a very smart turnout with a pair of thoroughbreds, and a mistress for a prince, Coralie herself.” “Well, and is there any harm in it?” “You would not say that if you thought that there was no harm in it,” said Bianchon. “I could have wished Lucien a Beatrice,” said d’Arthez, “a noble woman, who would have been a help to him in life——” “But, Daniel,” asked Lucien, “love is love wherever you find it, is it not?” “Ah!” said the republican member, “on that one point I am an aristocrat. I could not bring myself to love a woman who must rub shoulders with all sorts of people in the green-room; whom an actor kisses on stage; she must lower herself before the public, smile on every one, lift her skirts as she dances, and dress like a man, that all the world may see what none should see save I alone. Or if I loved such a woman, she should leave the stage, and my love should cleanse her from the stain of it.” “And if she would not leave the stage?” “I should die of mortification, jealousy, and all sorts of pain. You cannot pluck love out of your heart as you draw a tooth.” Lucien’s face grew dark and thoughtful. “When they find out that I am tolerating Camusot, how they will despise me,” he thought. “Look here,” said the fierce republican, with humorous fierceness, “you can be a great writer, but a little play-actor you shall never be,” and he took up his hat and went out. “He is hard, is Michel Chrestien,” commented Lucien. “Hard and salutary, like the dentist’s pincers,” said Bianchon. “Michel foresees your future; perhaps in the street, at this moment, he is thinking of you with tears in his eyes.” D’Arthez was kind, and talked comfortingly, and tried to cheer Lucien. The poet spent an hour with his friends, then he went, but his conscience treated him hardly, crying to him, “You will be a journalist—a journalist!” as the witch cried to Macbeth that he should be king hereafter! Out in the street, he looked up at d’Arthez’s windows, and saw a faint light shining in them, and his heart sank. A dim foreboding told him that he had bidden his friends good-bye for the last time.