M. Bocardon sat in his bureau, pretending to do accounts and tracing columns of figures with a huge, trembling forefinger. He looked the picture of woe. Aristide decided to bide his opportunity. He went out into the streets again, now with the object of killing time. The afternoon had advanced, and trees and buildings cast cool shadows in which one could walk with comfort; and Nîmes, clear, bright city of wide avenues and broad open spaces, instinct too with the grandeur that was Rome's, is an idler's Paradise. Aristide knew it well; but he never tired of it. He wandered round the Maison Carrée, his responsive nature delighting in the splendour of the Temple, with its fluted Corinthian columns, its noble entablature, its massive pediment, its perfect proportions; reluctantly turned down the Boulevard Victor Hugo, past the Lycée and the Bourse, made the circuit of the mighty, double-arched oval of the Arena, and then retraced his steps. As he expected, M. Bocardon had left the bureau. It was the hour of absinthe. The porter named M. Bocardon's habitual café. There, in a morose corner of the terrace, Aristide found the huge man gloomily contemplating an absurdly small glass of the bitters known as Dubonnet. Aristide raised his hat, asked permission to join him, and sat down. "M. Bocardon," said he, carefully mixing the absinthe which he had ordered, "I learn from my fair cousin that there is between you a regrettable misunderstanding, for which I am sincerely sorry." "She calls it a misunderstanding?" He laughed mirthlessly. "Women have their own vocabulary. Listen, my good sir. There is infamy between us. When a wife betrays a man like me--kind, indulgent, trustful, who has worshipped the ground she treads on--it is not a question of misunderstanding. It is infamy. If she had anywhere to lay her head, I would turn her out of doors to-night. But she has not. You, who are her relative, know I married her without a dowry. You alone of her family survive." It was on the tip of Aristide's impulsive tongue to say that he would be only too willing to shelter her, but prudently he refrained. "She has broken my heart," continued Bocardon.