"She cuffs me for a _yes_ or a _no_; but it's worse than ever, since I refused Beauvisage. Ah! I am very unhappy! It wouldn't take much to make me jump into the Canal de l'Ourcq." "Come, come, be calm; the most urgent thing now is to find out where you can go to pass the night, as your mother really refuses to admit you. Have you any relations in this quarter?" "Mon Dieu! no, not a soul; I have an aunt in Faubourg Saint-Denis; but she wouldn't take me in--she'd be too much afraid of having a row with my mother." "Madame Jérôme is a general terror, I see." "Alas! yes." "Where will you sleep, then?" "At your house, monsieur, with your permission; or else in the street." There was in Nicette's suggestion such childlike innocence, or such shameless effrontery, that I could not restrain a start of surprise. It is difficult to believe in the innocence and naïveté of a flower girl. And yet, in her language there was something so sincere, so persuasive; and on the other hand, her eyes, whose expression was so soft and tender when they were not bathed in tears, her little retroussé nose, the way in which she had seized my arm, and, lastly, this barefaced proposal to pass the night in a young man's apartment--all these things threw my mind into a state of uncertainty to which I tried in vain to put an end. However, I was obliged to make up my mind. Nicette was gazing at me, awaiting my answer; her eyes implored me. My heart was weak. "Come with me," I said at last. "Ah! monsieur, how good you are! how I thank you!" Again she took possession of my arm, and we started for Rue Saint-Florentin. This time we made the journey in silence. I was musing upon the singularity of the adventure that had happened to me. The idea of my taking a street corner huckster home with me, to sleep in my rooms! And remember, reader, that I lived on Rue Saint-Florentin, near the Tuileries; you will divine, from that detail, that I was something of a swell, but a swell who followed grisettes. Oh! it was simply as a pastime. I was not in the least conceited, I beg you to believe; and if an impulse which I could not control drew me constantly toward the fair sex, and led me to overlook rank and social station, I may say with Boileau: "'Twas destiny's fault!" But I was not one of those persons, either, who defy all the proprieties; I did not wish to be looked upon, in the house in which I lived, as a man who consorted with the first woman he chanced to meet; and in that house, as everywhere, there were malicious tongues! I had, in particular, a certain neighbor. Ah!----