"My child," murmured Frisonnette, "come and perch on my lap, while I talk wisdom to you, for you are very young, and you have been such a little while in Paradise that you have not learnt the ways of its habitants. It chagrins you that you cannot give me dessert, and domestics, and a cinema every Saturday night. But because I worship you, my little sugar husband, because every moment that I pass away from you, among the millinery, seems to me as long as the rue de Vaugirard, I do not think of such things when we are together. To be in your arms is enough. Life looks to me divine--and if I find anything at all lacking in our heavens it is merely a second cupboard. Now, since you are too heavy for me, you may jump down, and we will reverse the situation." "I have strange tidings to reveal to you," said Floromond, squeezing the breath out of her--"I adore you, Frisonnette!" They remained so blissful that many people were of the opinion that Providence was neglecting its plain duty. Here was a thriftless painter daring to marry a girl without a franc, and finding the course of wedlock run as smooth as if he had been a prosperous grocer with branches in the suburbs! The example set to the Youth of the quarter was shocking. And a year passed, and two years passed, and still the angels might see Floromond and Frisonnette kissing at the attic window. Then one afternoon it happened that a French beauty, hastening along the rue La Fayette with tiny, toppling steps, as if her bust were too heavy for her feet, found herself arrested by a toque on view at Auréole's--and entering with condescension, was still more charmed by the assistant who attended to her. The chance customer was no one less important than the wife of Finot--Finot the dressmaker, Finot the Famous--and at dinner that night, when they had reached the cheese, she said to the great man: "My little cabbage, at a milliner's of no distinction I have come across a blonde who could wipe the floor with every mannequin we boast. She is as chic as a model, and as bright as a sequin; she is just the height to do justice to a _manteau;_ her neck would go beautifully with an evening gown; and she has hips that were created for next season's skirt." "Let her call!" said the great man, adding a few drops of kirsch to his _petit suisse_. "She would be good business, I assure you," declared the lady; "she talked me into taking a toque more than twice the price of the one I went in for--_me_! Well, I shall have to find a pretext for speaking to her--I must go back and see if there is another hat that I care to buy." "It is not necessary," replied her husband; "go back and complain of the one you bought."