“It was my brother who threw that on the floor.” And the father left the salon, giving Bélan his word that his son should be punished when everybody had gone. That contradance was the last; the candles threatened to follow the example of the lamps, and the dancers were afraid of falling in with slices of orange when they balanced their partners. Everybody departed. I went downstairs at the same time as Mademoiselle Dumeillan and her mother. I offered the latter my hand, while looking at the daughter only; I assisted them into a cab and bowed. That was as far as I could go at a first meeting. I heard someone laughing and humming behind me. It was Bélan, following the lady in black and her husband; as he passed he whispered in my ear: “I am following her, it’s all right. As for La Montdidier, that is all over, it’s broken off, we are sworn enemies. Adieu, I must pursue my conquest.” A moment later Montdidier and his wife passed, accompanied by a tall, fair-haired youth who had stood behind madame’s chair all the evening. I smiled as I remembered Bélan’s purpose to be virtuous, and I could not forbear exclaiming: “Oh! these men! these women!” IV A PAIR OF LOVERS I lived on Rue Meslay, in a large house where there were apartments for all sorts of persons, even for those who had no money; and where, consequently, the man who passed the night working to earn his living used the same staircase as the man who passed the night amusing himself; the only difference was that the former went up higher. But even under the eaves there are pleasures and love and some very charming faces. The man who knows how to find them is not afraid to go up rather high. I knew that there were at the top of my house--that is to say, of the house where I lived--some small, unplastered rooms, with cracks in the walls and loose doors and windows, where the chimneys smoked, where one froze in winter, where the rats and mice came every night to visit the occupants, and which, none the less, the landlord let for the highest price that he could obtain; however, he would not accept everybody as a tenant, but insisted upon having none but quiet people. I had never been up to inspect those little rooms. It was not for lack of inclination, however, for I had met several times on my staircase a very pretty girl, who, as I knew, occupied one of the most modest apartments on the fifth floor. She had not the aspect of a common working girl, nor had she the wide-awake air of a grisette, and yet she was almost that, for she worked for her living. She made wreaths, so the concierge told me, and mended linen when people chose to give her any to mend. But she seemed so young that she inspired little confidence in the people to whom she went to ask for work; and yet one may be quite as honest at sixteen years as at forty. Honesty is in the blood; when one must look to time and experience for it, it is never built on a very solid foundation.