"Ma foi, Nicole," Barabant answered, "it's not much. I was at Fontainebleau; I'm now in Paris. I had an uncle who disapproved of my ideas; he showed me the door, I declared his goods confiscate, and here I am, not a bit depressed,--with but one debt," he added as an afterthought. "Debts are aristocratic; renounce them." "The trouble is, I can't rid myself of the creditor, though I pay him over and over." Nicole raised her glance in surprise, but Barabant added, smiling, "It is my stomach, and a persistent creditor he is." Nicole laughed gaily. "There, touch hands," she cried. "You are the philosopher." Persisting in her inquiry, she continued encouragingly: "You have a father?" Barabant smiled. "And a mother, too. And now no more questions, Nicole, for I shall refuse them." She drew back with a little movement of pique, but yielding to her natural moods, she lifted her eyebrows and, with her charming smile, said with frankness: "Ah, you are legitimate, then. I have only a mother; that is to say, I had. She is dead now. I don't remember her. God rest her soul." A little movement of superstition passed over her face and she crossed herself. "My father was a sergeant of the line, so they tell me." She threw out the palms of her hands. "Who knows? It might as well be a rag-picker, or a prince, for all the good it does me." "Diable!" Barabant exclaimed, regarding her more closely. "You don't seem to be cast down." "Oh, no; it's only this year I've been by myself. I was brought up by my aunt--Aunt Berthe. What a woman!" She shook her head grimly. "When I came in late she beat me,--oh, but solidly, firmly." She grimaced and, with the instinct of acting that is of the people, drew her hand across her shoulder, as though still smarting under the sting. "And do you know how it ended?" "Well, how?" "It ended by my taking the cane from her one night and laying it over her. Oh, such a beating! I was striking for old scores. Aïe! aïe! After that, you understand, I couldn't return." "I understand." "So I took a room next to Louison." Barabant raised his eyebrows in question. "Louison? She's a comrade. You will see her." She stopped. "We are good friends, only I--well--I don't know." Nicole, who conversed abundantly with her shoulders, raised them again. "When you're rich you can choose; but with us, we take what's nearest. We must have some one to gossip with, to weep with, to laugh with, to confide a little in, and so we take what we can get. That's how it is." Suddenly she halted suspiciously. "Are you a patriot?" she asked point-blank. "You'd have thought so last night." Barabant, remembering the drubbing he had escaped the night before, grinned and nodded. At his description of the café Nicole showed great interest.