She placed him, flapping his wings, on her shoulder and continued. At the first court, by the stairs that led to the vacant apartment on the second floor, she hesitated, but the indecision was momentary. Into the second court Barabant followed with an air of interest that showed that, though perhaps familiar with the streets of Paris, he had never delved into its secret places. Twice more la Mère Corniche halted before possible lodgings, until at last, having vanquished each temptation, she began to clamber up the shaky flights that led to the attic. Barabant had perceived each mental struggle with great enjoyment. He was young, adventurous, entering life through strange gates. So when at length they reached the end of their climb, and his guide, after much tugging, accompanied by occasional kicks, had forced open the reluctant door, the dingy attic appeared to him a haven of splendor. La Mère Corniche watched him curiously from the doorway, rubbing her chin. "Eh, Citoyen Barabant? Well, does it suit you?" "Perfect." He cast a careless glance at the impoverished room and craned out of the window. In his survey of the court, his eye rested a moment on the window below, where, through the careless folds of a half-curtain, he had caught the gleam of a white arm. "And what is the price of this?" he asked; but his thoughts were elsewhere. "Nothing." La Mère Corniche sighed heroically, and hastened on as though distrusting her generosity. "Only, when you see Citoyen Marat, tell him that I, Citoyenne Corniche, have done this to one who is his friend." Barabant remained one moment motionless, as though confounded at this remnant of human feeling in the sibyl. But the door had hardly closed when, without a glance at his new quarters, he was again at the window. The truth was that, without hesitating to reflect on the insufficiency of the evidence, he had already built a romance on the sight of a white arm seen two stories below through the folds of a curtain. So when he returned eagerly to his scrutiny, what was his disenchantment to perceive below a very buxom matron, who was regarding him with equal attentiveness. Barabant, with a laugh at his own discomfiture, began to search more cautiously. And as one deception in youth is sufficient to make a skeptic for an hour, when in turn he began to explore the window opposite he received, with indifference, the view of another arm, though it was equally white and well modeled. But this time, as though Fate were determined to rebuke him for scorning her gifts, there appeared at the window the figure of a young girl, whose early toilet allowed to be seen a throat and arm of sufficient whiteness to dazzle the young romanticist.