Claude thanked him with a deprecatory smile and turned to bow to the three lady visitors, not one of whom offered him her hand. The mother, who scratched her head every now and then with one of her knitting-needles, was busily at work upon a blue woollen stocking, and her two daughters were engaged upon some embroidery. Madame Offarel's hair was quite white, and her face deeply wrinkled; through the round glasses that she managed to balance somehow or other on her short nose there flashed a glance of deep hatred upon Claude. Angélique, the elder of the two girls, repressed a smile as she heard the writer make a slight slip in his pronunciation; with her black eyes, that shot swift sideward glances, with her blushes that came as readily as her smiles, she belonged to the numerous family of shy but mocking females. Rosalie, the younger of the two sisters, had returned Claude's salute without raising her eyes, black as her sister's, but filled with a sweet, timid expression. A few minutes later she stole a glance from beneath her long lashes at René, and her fingers trembled as her needle followed the tracing for the embroidery. She bent her head still lower until her chestnut hair shone in the lamp-light. Not a whit of this by-play had been lost upon Claude. He was well acquainted with the habits and disposition of _ces dames Offarel_, as Fresneau called them in his provincial way. They had probably arrived at about seven o'clock, soon after dinner. Old Offarel, after having accompanied them here from the Rue Bagneux, had gone on to the Café Tabourey, at the corner of the Odéon, where he conscientiously waded through all the daily papers. Claude had long guessed that Madame Offarel cherished the idea of a marriage between Rosalie and René; he suspected his young friend of having encouraged these hopes by an innate taste for the romantic, and it was only too evident that Rosalie had been captivated by the mental qualities and physical attractions of the poet. He, Claude Larcher, knew well enough, too, that he himself was both liked and feared by the girl. She liked him because he was devoted to René, and feared him because he was dragging the latter into a fresh current of events. To this innocent child, as well as to all the members of this small circle, the _soirée_ at Madame Komof's seemed like a fairy expedition to distant and unexplored lands. In each of them it conjured up chimerical hopes or foolish fears. Emilie Fresneau had always cherished the most ambitious dreams for her brother, and she now pictured him leaning against a mantelpiece reciting verses in the midst of a crowd of duchesses, and beloved by a 'Russian princess.' These two words expressed the highest form of social superiority that her mind was capable of imagining. Rosalie was the victim of the keenest perspicacity--that of the woman who loves. Although she reproached herself for her folly, René's eyes frightened her with the joy they