"No; but I figure that they will at least shut their eyes--I would then be able to dazzle the minx with presents, and proceed rapidly to my goal. Well, how does my plan strike you?" "I'll be blown! How can I tell?" answered Pradeline, affecting innocence. "If things are done in your upper world in that manner, if parents sell their daughters, perhaps the thing is done in the same way among the poorer folks. Still, I don't believe it. These people are too bourgeois, they are too niggardly, you see?" "My little girl," said the Count of Plouernel haughtily, "you are emancipating yourself prodigiously." At this reproach the young girl broke out with a peal of laughter, which she interrupted to sing in merry notes this new improvisation: "O! See that bold signor, So full of pride, honor? To such a haughty flea All bourgeois bend the knee! La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla--" After which Pradeline rose, took from the mantlepiece a cigar that she deftly lighted, and proceeded to hum her refrain between the puffs of smoke that she blew out of her cherry lips. She then stretched herself at full length upon a lounge, and drove in silence the bluish smoke of her choice Havana towards the ceiling. Forgetting the anger with which he was seized shortly before, the Count of Plouernel could not avoid laughing at the originality displayed by the young girl, and said: "Come, my little pet; let us talk seriously. I am not asking for songs, but for advice." "I must first be informed of the quarter of the town in which your love is located," observed the young girl dogmatically, turning over on the lounge. "The knowledge of the quarter is very important in such matters. What may be done in one quarter, can not be done in another. Darling, there are prudish quarters, devout quarters, and _decolleté_ quarters." "Profoundly reasoned, my charmer. The influence of a quarter upon the virtue of its women is considerable. Without running any risk I may tell you that my shop-girl lives on St. Denis Street." The young girl, who, stretched out upon the lounge, had been leisurely and nonchalantly rolling the clouds of smoke from her cigar before her, started at the mention of St. Denis Street, and rose so suddenly that the Count of Plouernel looked at her in astonishment, and cried: "What the devil has come over you?" "What has come over me--" answered Pradeline, quickly recovering her composure and wonted nonchalance, "what has come over me is that your horrible cigar has burnt me--but that's no matter. You were saying, darling, that your love is located in St. Denis Street? Well, now I have something to go by; but not yet enough." "And you shall not learn any more, my little beauty." "The pest take this cigar!" exclaimed Pradeline, again shaking her head. "It will blister me! It will blister me surely!" "Would you like some cold water?"