René now listened in delightful intoxication to the music of his own verses, for by the silence as well as by the murmurs of approval that were occasionally heard he felt, he knew, that his work was as surely captivating this select audience as it had captivated the 'house' on its first night at the Théâtre Français, then filled with tired critics, worn-out reporters, scoffing _boulevardiers_, and smart women. Gradually his thoughts took him back, in spite of himself, to the period when he had first thought out and then written the little play which was that night procuring him such a new and delightful thrill of gratification, after having so completely changed the tenor of his life. He saw himself once more in the Luxembourg garden at the close of a bright spring day; the charm of the deepening twilight, the smell of the flowers, the dark blue sky seen through the spare foliage, and the marble statues of the queens--all these things had deeply impressed him as he walked with Rosalie, silent, by his side. She had such a simple way of looking up at him with her great black eyes, in which he could read unconscious though tender passion. It was on that evening that he had first spoken to her of love, there, amidst the scent of the early lilac, whilst the voices of Madame Offarel and Emilie could be heard, indistinctly, in the distance. He had returned to the Rue Coëtlogon a prey to that fever of hope which brings tears to one's eyes and moves one's nature to its inmost depths. Finding it impossible to sleep, he had sat there alone in his room and drawn a comparison between Rosalie and the object of an earlier but less innocent attachment--a girl named Elise, living in the Quartier Latin. He had met her in a _brasserie_, where he had been taken by the only two comrades he possessed. Faded as she was, Elise could still boast of good looks, in spite of the black under her eyes, the powder all over her face, and the carmine on her lips. She had taken a fancy to him, and although she shocked him dreadfully by her gestures and her mode of thought, by her voice and her expressions, he had continued the acquaintanceship for about six months--six months that had left him nothing but a bitter memory. Being one of those in whom passion leads to affection, he had become attached to the girl in spite of himself, and he had suffered cruelly from her coquetry, the coarseness of her feelings, and the stock of moral infamy that formed the groundwork of the poor creature's nature.