'Well, what does he want to be so stuck up about?' continued the old lady. 'He looks at us as much as to say "Poor devils!"' 'How mistaken you are in him!' replied René. 'He is rather fond of going into smart society, it is true, but that is only natural in an artist. Why, it's the same with me,' he went on, with a smile. 'I was delighted to go to this affair last night and see that magnificent house filled with flowers and fine dresses. Do you think that prevents me appreciating my modest home and my old friends? All writers have that mad longing for splendour--even Balzac and Musset had it. It is a childish fancy of no importance.' Whilst the young man was speaking Rosalie darted a look at her mother that told of more happiness than her poor eyes had expressed for months past. In thus confessing to and ridiculing his own inmost feelings, René was obeying impulses too complicated for the simple girl to understand. When Madame Offarel had spoken of 'your grand folks' the young man had seen by the look of anguish in her daughter's eyes that his love for the false glamour of elegance had not escaped Rosalie's perspicacity. He was ashamed of being found guilty of such a plebeian failing, and therefore laid bare his impressions as though he were not their dupe--partly in order to reassure the girl and spare her unnecessary pain, partly in order to indulge in a little weakness without having to reproach himself unduly. Certain natures--and, owing to the habit of introspection, these are frequently found amongst writers--find pardon for their sins in mere confession. In defending Claude Larcher, René, with an irony that would have escaped sharper critics than a trusting girl, managed to administer a sharp rebuke to his own follies. Whilst openly ridiculing what he himself called his snobbishness, he continued to make those mean-spirited mental comparisons that would force themselves upon him all that day. He could not help measuring the gulf that separated the creatures he had seen at Madame Komof's--living blooms reared in the hothouse of European aristocracy--from the pale-faced and simple-looking creature before him, her hands spoilt by work, her hair tied back in a knot, and dressed so plainly as to look almost uncouth. The comparison, when dwelt upon, became quite painful, and caused the young man one of those inexplicable fits of ill-humour that always nonplussed Rosalie.