"Not dislike to you personally, Citizen, but dislike to the business which she connects with your visits, and she is more than usually agitated on that subject this evening, because, just before you came, another visitor had produced a great effect on her feelings--poor dear Heloise!" "Indeed! how?" "Well, I was employed in the winter in redecorating the salon, and boudoir, of Madame de Vandemar; her son, M. Raoul, took great interest in superintending the details. He would sometimes talk to me very civilly, not only on my work, but on other matters. It seems that Madame now wants something done to the _salle-a-manger_, and asked old Gerard--my late master, you know--to send me. Of course he said that was impossible--for, though I was satisfied with my own wages, I had induced his other men to strike, and was one of the ringleaders in the recent strike of artisans in general--a dangerous man, and he would have nothing more to do with me. So M. Raoul came to see and talk to me--scarce gone before you rang at the bell--you might have almost met him on the stairs." "I saw a beau monsieur come out of the house. And so his talk has affected Madame." "Very much; it was quite brother-like. He is one of the religious set, and they always get at the weak side of the soft sex." "Ay," said Lebeau, thoughtfully; "if religion were banished from the laws of men, it would still find a refuge in the hearts of women. But Raoul de Vandemar did not presume to preach to Madame upon the sin of loving you and your children?" "I should like to have heard him preach to her," cried Monnier, fiercely. "No, he only tried to reason with me about matters he could not understand." "Strikes?"