"_Voyons, chère amie_," said he comfortingly, "all is not yet lost. If the theatre does not give you a livelihood, we might try something else. I have my little savings. I could easily lend you enough to buy a _petit commerce_, a little business. You could repay me, bit by bit, at your convenience. _Tiens!_ Didn't you tell me you were apprenticed to a dressmaker?" But Elodie was hopeless. All that she had learned as a child she had forgotten. She was fit for nothing but posturing on the stage. If André could get her a good engagement, that was all the aid she would accept. Andrew looked at his watch. The afternoon had sped with magical rapidity. He reflected that not only must he dine, but he must think over and rehearse the evening's performance with Prépimpin's part cut out. He dared not improvise before the public. He rose with the apologetic explanation-- "My little Elodie," said he, as they walked along the battlemented city walls towards the great gate, "have courage. Come to the Palace to-night. I will arrange that you shall have a loge. You only have to ask for it. And after my turn, you shall meet me, as long ago, at the Café des Négociants, and we shall sup together and talk of your affairs." She meekly consented. And when they parted at the entrance to the Hôtel d'Europe, he said: "If I do not ask you to dine, it is because I have to think and work. You understand? But in your pocket you will find _de quoi bien dîner. Au revoir, chère amie_." He put out his hand. She held it, while her eyes, tragically large and dark, searched his with painful intensity. "Tell me," she said, "is it better that I should come and see you to-night or that I should throw myself over the bridge into the Rhone?" "If you meet me to-night," said Andrew, "you will still be alive, which, after all, is a very good thing." "_Je viendrai,_" said Elodie. "The devil!" said Andrew, entering the courtyard of the hotel, and wiping a perspiring brow, "here am I faced with a pretty responsibility!"