“No, let me tell you, for it is I who would be compromised. You have seen the house. All middle-class people, and of extreme morality! between ourselves, they affect it rather too much. Never a word, never more noise than you have heard just now. Ah, well! Monsieur Gourd would at once fetch Monsieur Vabre, and we should both be in a nice pickle! My dear fellow, I ask it of you for my own peace of mind: respect the house.” Octave, overpowered by so much virtue and respectability, swore to do so. Then, Campardon, casting a mistrustful glance around, and lowering his voice as though some one might have heard him, added with sparkling eyes: “Outside it concerns nobody. Paris is big enough, is it not? there is plenty of room. As for myself, I am at heart an artist, therefore I think nothing of it!” A porter carried up the trunks. When everything was straight, the architect assisted paternally at Octave’s toilet. Then, rising to his feet he said: “Now we will go and see my wife.” Down on the third floor the maid, a slim, dark, and coquettish looking girl, said that madame was busy. Campardon, with a view of putting his young friend at ease, showed him over the rooms: first of all, there was the huge white and gold drawingroom, highly decorated with artificial mouldings, and situated between a green parlour which the architect had turned into a workroom and the bedroom, into which they could not enter, but the narrow shape of which, and the mauve wall-paper, he described. As he next ushered him into the dining-room, all in imitation wood, with an extraordinary complication of baguettes and coffers, Octave, enchanted, exclaimed: “It is very handsome!” On the ceiling, two big cracks cut right through the coffers, and, in a corner, the paint had peeled off and displayed the plaster. “Yes, it creates an effect,” slowly observed the architect, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “You see, these kind of houses are built to create effect. Only, the walls will not bear much looking into. It is not twelve years old yet, and it is already cracking. One builds the frontage of handsome stone, with a lot of sculpture about it; one gives three coats of varnish to the walls of the staircase; one paints and gilds the rooms; and all that flatters people, and inspires respect. Oh! it is still solid, it will certainly last as long as we shall!” He led him again across the ante-room, which was lighted by a window of ground glass. To the left, looking on to the courtyard, there was a second bed-chamber where his daughter Angèle slept, and which, all in white, looked on this November afternoon as sad as a tomb. Then at the end of the passage, came the kitchen, into which he insisted on conducting Octave, saying that it was necessary to see everything. “Walk in,” repeated he, pushing open the door.