“Good news, dear Eve,” said Lucien, waking his sister, “David will have no debts in less than a month!” “How is that?” “Well, my Louise is still hidden by Mme. du Châtelet’s petticoat. She loves me more than ever; she will send a favorable report of our discovery to the Minister of the Interior through her husband. So we have only to endure our troubles for one month, while I avenge myself on the prefect and complete the happiness of his married life.” Eve listened, and thought that she must be dreaming. “I saw the little gray drawing-room where I trembled like a child two years ago; it seemed as if scales fell from my eyes when I saw the furniture and the pictures and the faces again. How Paris changes one’s ideas!” “Is that a good thing?” asked Eve, at last beginning to understand. “Come, come; you are still asleep. We will talk about it to-morrow after breakfast.” Cérizet’s plot was exceedingly simple, a commonplace stratagem familiar to the provincial bailiff. Its success entirely depends upon circumstances, and in this case it was certain, so intimate was Cérizet’s knowledge of the characters and hopes of those concerned. Cérizet had been a kind of Don Juan among the young work-girls, ruling his victims by playing one off against another. Since he had been the Cointet’s extra foreman, he had singled out one of Basine Clerget’s assistants, a girl almost as handsome as Mme. Séchard. Henriette Signol’s parents owned a small vineyard two leagues out of Angoulême, on the road to Saintes. The Signols, like everybody else in the country, could not afford to keep their only child at home; so they meant her to go out to service, in country phrase. The art of clear-starching is a part of every country housemaid’s training; and so great was Mme. Prieur’s reputation, that the Signols sent Henriette to her as apprentice, and paid for their daughter’s board and lodging.