“I swear, Désiré,” cried Gaillard, “I have been in a worse condition than you. I have been on the edge of suicide. Moulin Rouge! I have not been to the Moulin Rouge. I took to my bed three days ago to read ‘Aucassin and Nicolete’ and try to forget that I was alive. I have not eaten—morphia and cigarettes alone have passed my lips during the last forty-eight hours. Then I thought of you; then I came, and for reward I am accused like this! No matter.” “If she were an ordinary girl,” said Toto, disregarding Gaillard’s fantasies, “I would give her five thousand francs and set her up in business, and there would be an end of it.” “Ah, Désiré! ah, Désiré!” gasped Gaillard, like a man trying to speak in a shower bath. “Can it be that at last you are going to return to us? Can——” “Call me Toto,” cried the Prince. “I hate that vile name Désiré. I put it on with this foolishness—this rotten art business. Don’t mind me, my dear fellow; let me rave. I have had no one to talk to for days but Garnier and Célestin. They do not understand me.” “Go on, go on,” said Gaillard, as if Toto had swallowed poison and he was urging him to vomit. “Speak away, it will do you good; relieve your mind—it will save you perhaps from madness. Ah, I can understand—I can understand what you must have suffered, my poor Toto! I have been through it all myself.” “Come in here,” said Toto, stopping at a small café; “we can sit down and talk.” “Yes, let us enter,” said Gaillard. “No, do not touch absinthe in a place like this; if you wish to die, choose an easier poison. Beer? Yes, let us have some beer. And now, Toto, continue your troubles.” “I have only one trouble,” said Toto, “and that is Célestin.” “Ah, _mon Dieu!_ that is a trouble easily got rid of.” “How?” “Leave Célestin to me.” “What would you do with her?” “I?—nothing. I would simply say, ‘Mlle. Célestin, M. Désiré has been called away to the death-bed of an aunt in the country. She will leave him her entire fortune if he marries at once and according to her desires.’ Then I would say, ‘The girl upon whom his aunt has fixed——’” “Oh, rubbish! I could do that myself. Do you think if I wanted to I could not kick Célestin over in half an hour? You do not understand. She is like no one else. She is like a child. I cannot hurt her. She would haunt me forever, she and that lark. Oh, why did I ever meet her? But for her I would have been back days ago out of this abominable Rue de Perpignan. If it had not been for her, I would never have come here at all. She drove me on to this stupidity, I don’t know why.” “If,” said Gaillard rather stiffly, “you still love this girl so much——” “But I don’t. I mean this: I thought I was in love with her, and, somehow, now everything seems to have gone to pieces all at once; the pleasure went out of my life all at once. I am lingering on in this infernal part of the town like a thing with a broken back. I don’t know what I am to do.” “I know,” said Gaillard. “What?”