The drunkard flung himself forward and seized her in his arms. She defended herself furiously, averting her face, resisting all his efforts to drag her into the street; until Cramoisin, getting his arm around her waist, wrenched her forth screaming in her terror: "Citoyen Javogues, Citoyen Javogues, protect me! Don't let him take me, Citoyen Javogues!" Javogues, recognizing the voice, ran up. "Who've you got there?" "Don't you see I've got a woman?" Cramoisin said surlily. He added an obscenity that caused the girl, in despair, to exclaim: "Oh, Citoyen Javogues, save me, save me!" "None of that," Javogues cried angrily. "Let her go." As the drunken Cramoisin started to protest, with a blow of his fist he knocked him down. Geneviève, carried down in the fall, flung herself at the feet of Javogues, grasping his knees. "Thanks, thanks," she cried hysterically. "Citoyen, you are good, you are kind!" Then fearing to become too prominent, she hurried to her place, enveloping her head with a shawl and crouching back into the friendly obscurity. Cramoisin, whimpering, disappeared; Javogues, Boudgoust, and Jambony reeled away. Fatigue stilled even the noisiest. The night was achieved in sleep. Toward six the line roused itself, as two inspectors of the municipality arrived to preside over the distribution of the bread. The doors were opened and the frantic rush began, those in the rear crowding forward with frenzied inquiries, which changed into the familiar shrieks of despair when the doors were closed with a third of the line unserved. Geneviève, who had received her maximum of bread among the last, avoided the outstretched hands of the unsuccessful and escaped up the street, to where la Mère Corniche, at her post, exacted a tithe from each lodger. Dropping her tribute in the basket, she was hastening on when the concierge retained her with the cry: "The Citoyen Javogues wants you." Thinking that it was to fetch water from the Seine, the girl sought her bucket and hastened to the room of the Marseillais. At the sight of the bucket, Javogues frowned and asked: "What are you doing with that?" "Don't you want me to fetch water?" "No." "Ah." "Leave the bucket in the corner." Geneviève obeyed. Javogues shut the door, returned, and frowned again as he saw that she was trembling. "What is the matter?" he said roughly. "Why do you tremble?" She shook her head. "Are you afraid of me?" he said, advancing. "Oh, no." "Then what is it?" "I'm glad--that's all." "True?" All at once the girl, flinging herself at his feet, caught his hands and cried: "I love you, I love you, I love you!" "What, me!" Javogues cried, amazed, retreating a step. "You love _me_!" "I adore you. I think of nothing but you. You are my god!" "There is no God!" "Yes, when one loves." "Then you love me--it's true?" he said, raising her to her feet. "Why do you love me?" "Why?" She drew a long breath. "You are so big, so heroic!"