It is true that the idea was not original with him, and that he had even vehemently rejected it, when, for the first time, Mlle. Lucienne had suggested it. “What!” had he exclaimed, “be employed in the same establishment as my father? Suffer at the office the same intolerable despotism as at home? I’d rather break stones on the roads.” But Mlle. Lucienne was not the girl to give up so easily a project conceived and carefully matured by herself. She returned to the charge with that infinite art of women, who understand so marvelously well how to turn a position which they cannot carry in front. She kept the matter so well before him, she spoke of it so often and so much, on every occasion, and under all pretexts, that he ended by persuading himself that it was the only reasonable and practical thing he could do, the only way in which he had any chance of making his fortune; and so, one evening overcoming his last hesitations, “I am going to speak about it to my father,” he said to Mlle. Lucienne. But whether he had been influenced by M. Costeclar’s insinuations, or for some other reason, M. Favoral had rejected indignantly his son’s request, saying that it was impossible to trust a young man who was ruining himself for the sake of a miserable creature. Maxence had become crimson with rage on hearing the woman spoken of thus, whom he loved to madness, and who, far from ruining him, was making him. He returned to the Hotel des Folies in an indescribable state of exasperation. “There’s the result,” he said to Mlle. Lucienne, “of the step which you have urged me so strongly to take.” She seemed neither surprised nor irritated. “Very well,” she replied simply. But Maxence could not resign himself so quietly to such a cruel disappointment; and, not having the slightest suspicion of Costeclar’s doings, “And such is,” he added, “the result of all the gossip of these stupid shop-keepers who run to see you every time you go out in the carriage.” The girl shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. “I expected it,” she said, “the day when I accepted M. Van Klopen’s offers.” “Everybody believes that you are my mistress.” “What matters it, since it is not so?” Maxence did not dare to confess that this was precisely what made him doubly angry; and he shuddered at the thought of the ridicule that would certainly be heaped upon him, if the true state of the case was known. “We ought to move,” he suggested. “What’s the use? Wherever we should go, it would be the same thing. Besides, I don’t want to leave this neighborhood.” “And I am too much your friend not to tell you, that your reputation in it is absolutely lost.” “I have no accounts to render to any one.” “Except to your friend the commissary of police, however.” A pale smile flitted upon her lips. “Ah!” she uttered, “he knows the truth.” “You have seen him again, then?” “Several times.” “Since we have known each other?” “Yes.” “And you never told me anything about it?”