They soon reached the carriage, which the lady entered; then she said to Adhémar: "It may be that your injured arm will pain you if you walk, monsieur. Will you not allow me to take you home, or wherever you wish to go?" "You are a thousand times too kind, madame; but I do not desire to cause you so much trouble, and I assure you that my hand doesn't pain me at all." She did not insist, but pursed her lips as one does when one is annoyed. Then she bowed low to Adhémar, and said to the cabman: "No. 40, Rue de Paradis-Poissonnière." The cabman closed the door, mounted his box, and drove away; and Adhémar, standing on the same spot, looked after it, muttering: "Why on earth did I refuse to let her drive me home? What a fool a man is, sometimes! You long for a thing--for it would have given me great pleasure to spend a longer time with her--and you refuse it! Why? I haven't any good reason to give myself, even. But, yes, I have one! She is good-looking, I feel certain that she would attract me, that I should speedily fall in love with her; and I do not propose to fall in love again! But does that purpose involve a resolution not to form an agreeable intimacy? And then, what right have I to assume that this lady would have listened to me?--Let us see what her name is. As for her address, I remember that; she told the cabman loud enough." He took the card from his pocket and read: "Nathalie Dermont--nothing more; and there's no _widow_ on the card. Why is that omitted? But still, if her husband has been dead some time, she's not bound to go on styling herself _widow_. She's an exceedingly attractive woman! A pretty face and figure, and nothing stupid about her! Ah! that is the principal thing to guard against; for a stupid woman is deadly! However, I haven't wasted my day, at all events." III A DEALER IN SECOND-HAND CLOTHES Dodichet had as his mistress for the moment--or, rather, as his companion in pleasure, for, as he had money only occasionally and by chance, he rarely indulged in the luxury of a mistress--he had, we will say, for an intimate acquaintance a young woman who danced in the ballet at one of the smaller theatres, and who was always ready to accept an invitation to dinner or supper, when he was sufficiently in funds to allow him to extend such an invitation. Dodichet betook himself to the abode of this stage artist, whose name was Boulotte, and who lived on the fifth floor of a house on Faubourg du Temple. Mademoiselle Boulotte, who was in the act of compounding a new kind of mineral rouge, with bricks pounded up in flour, uttered a cry of joy when Dodichet appeared. "Have you come to take me to dine at the restaurant?" she said. "My word! but it comes just at the right time; I've had nothing but a sausage to-day, and that's too light."