Why did she thus avoid him? He remembered their first encounter with Louison. Was she jealous of her comrade, or was it simply calculation? That Nicole should think of playing the coquette annoyed him exceedingly. He had yielded to the fascination of this gipsy from the moment she had taken his arm in the gardens of the Palais Royal with the mischievous "Barabant, you are a lucky fellow," with which she had opened their comradeship. But this easy, pleasurable interest had been fanned into a passionate flame at the storming of the Tuileries, where, by her fire, her tempestuous beauty, and her careless laughter, she had impressed herself imperishably on his imagination; and later the thought of her bearing him home, of her nursing, and of her tenderness had invaded his heart. With the rapture of the first unfolding romance he abandoned himself utterly to the thought of her, while retaining in his deeper consciousness, as undebatable, that limit of common sense which must separate the man of education and promise from a daughter of the people. The thought was a part of his intuitions rather than his consciousness; for in his simplicity he believed himself utterly unselfish in seeking her, and was at a loss to understand why she should have changed. Neither the afternoon nor the evening brought any sign of Nicole, nor during the next day could he obtain more than one glimpse of her, as she departed toward the flower-market. Recovered from his exhaustion, he set forth on the following morning, piqued and angry, resolved to find her and force an explanation. He searched the Palais Royal and the Tuileries without success, and it was only after luncheon that, passing down the left bank of the Seine, he found her near the Conciergerie. She was a little apart from the throng, strolling meditatively by the river, into whose swift flood her look was plunged. The half-depleted basket, overrun with flowers, dangled from her arm, while in her fingers she was turning a cockade without purpose. Against the hot August foliage and the buildings weltering under the sun there was something about her inexpressibly cool and refreshing to the eye. The meditative abandon of her pose suggested all at once to Barabant a reason for her absence, and with this pleasing thought his anger yielded to the zest of the eager and confident lover. So serious was her reverie that she was unaware of his approach until his greeting startled her. "Am I so terrible, Nicole," Barabant asked, smiling at her confusion, "that you find it necessary to avoid me?" She rallied quickly, and simulating indecision, exclaimed: "Why, it is the Citoyen Barabant!" Barabant brought his brows together and said, with a return of his exasperation: "Nicole, why do you avoid me?" She shook her head. "I don't avoid you; I do not seek you out." "Nicole, you are playing with me." She again shook her head. Barabant, taking her wrist, repeated the assertion.