He dealt in paintings in a little house in the rue d'Offémont. He was dark and bald, with the beard of a minion, a brutal mouth and the hands of a street-porter. He held an advantageous place in the syndicate of those painter-dealers whom the Paris of the _parvenus_ freely provides with both a living and notoriety. He frequented assiduously the fashionable drawing-rooms of the smart set, mixed with the élite of clubs and art circles, dressed like a sportsman, was as funny as a low comedian and carried about him a vague perfume of something beyond, an aristocratic vapor which seemed to float above his square shoulders. Listening to him, Zozé felt nearer the world of fashion. He was to her the higher step on the social ladder; merely to see that step was as good as believing she was on it and she clung to it with delight. She admired, as if they stood for the finest wit, his studio gossip, his prankish school ditties and the obscenity of his conversation. He had but to say a word and she laughed outright; she rushed to satisfy his slightest whim; in three months Chambannes took three paintings off his hands. Nevertheless Lastours soon abused his privilege. She dreamed of nothing else but the satisfaction of his desires and yet he treated her like a servant, ill-treated her when he was in bad humor; he even ordered the gentle Zozé, after their meetings, to fasten his boots for him. Such insolence, daily renewed, exasperated the unhappy woman and acted upon her love as water upon flames. She was fresh, loving and of a pleasant disposition; why should she be denied that happiness of the heart which fell to the lot of so many other women less beautiful than she was? In moments of passing intuition, Zozé gave herself the melancholy reply: They were often less beautiful, that was true, but they were Parisiennes; they were well read and resolute; they operated upon their native soil, while she was a little Mouzarkhi, blindly floating at the whim of her instincts, groping and stranded more than any girl lost on alien soil!... The next day, with renewed hope, she would go back to Lastours! When she ceased to love him, she wanted to avenge the outrages he had piled upon her. Following a banal, instinctive strategy, she gave herself to one of his friends--also a painter and one of Lastours' competitors--by the name of Montiers, who lived two doors further down the street.