He was no longer late at his office, and had not, at the end of each month, ten or fifteen francs’ fines to pay. Every morning, as soon as she was up, Mlle. Lucienne came to knock at his door. “Come, get up!” she cried to him. And quick he jumped out of bed and dressed, so that he might bid her good-morning before she left. In the evening, the last mouthful of his dinner was hardly swallowed, before he began copying the documents which he procured from M. Chapelain’s successor. And often he worked quite late in the night whilst by his side Mlle. Lucienne applied herself to some work of embroidery. The girl was the cashier of the association; and she administered the common capital with such skillful and such scrupulous economy, that Maxence soon succeeded in paying off his creditors. “Do you know,” she was saying at the end of December, “that, between us, we have earned over six hundred francs this month?” On Sundays only, after a week of which not a minute had been lost, they indulged in some little recreation. If the weather was not too bad, they went out together, dined in some modest restaurant, and finished the day at the theatre. Having thus a common existence, both young, free, and having their rooms divided only by a narrow passage it was difficult that people should believe in the innocence of their intercourse. The proprietors of the Hotel des Folies believed nothing of the kind; and they were not alone in that opinion. Mlle. Lucienne having continued to show herself in the Bois on the afternoons when the weather was fine, the number of fools who annoyed her with their attentions had greatly increased. Among the most obstinate could be numbered M. Costeclar, who was pleased to declare, upon his word of honor, that he had lost his sleep, and his taste for business, since the day when, together with M. Saint Pavin, he had first seen Mlle. Lucienne. The efforts of his valet, and the letters which he had written, having proved useless, M. Costeclar had made up his mind to act in person; and gallantly he had come to put himself on guard in front of the Hotel des Folies. Great was his surprise, when he saw Mlle. Lucienne coming out arm in arm with Maxence; and greater still was his spite. “That girl is a fool,” he thought, “to prefer to me a fellow who has not two hundred francs a month to spend. But never mind! He laughs best who laughs last.” And, as he was a man fertile in expedients, he went the next day to take a walk in the neighborhood of the Mutual Credit; and, having met M. Favoral by chance, he told him how his son Maxence was ruining himself for a young lady whose toilets were a scandal, insinuating delicately that it was his duty, as the head of the family, to put a stop to such a thing. This was precisely the time when Maxence was endeavoring to obtain a situation in the office of the Mutual Credit.