"Yes; as for that, I have never doubted it. Indeed, Henriette told me, in the beginning of our intimacy, when I complimented her on her lodgings, that she had paid for it all by her work and by the way she passed her nights; but as they lie constantly, they forget one day what they told you the day before. Here's a proof of it—look."

"What is this letter?"

"A billet-doux that I received from Henriette this morning; she doesn't write badly, I must do her that justice; and not a mistake in spelling! That's very nice for a flower-maker, but it's all the more dangerous. Take it and read it."

Edmond took the letter that his friend handed him and read as follows:

"Well! what do you say to that?"

"Why! I say—but what reply did you make? did you send the money?"

"I'm not so foolish, I tell you! In the first place, this letter is altogether too much! What does she mean by 'her furniture, that she thought was paid for, but is not?' And this upholsterer who will have her turned out of her apartments if she doesn't pay him? An upholsterer may take back his furniture, but he doesn't turn you into the street by that. The trick was too plain; and in order to write such stuff to a man, one must take him for a goose. As I don't care to be likened to that bird, I instantly informed the messenger that I was terribly distressed, that I was in despair, but that I was unable to hand her anything for Mademoiselle Henriette, and she went away with that answer.—Bigre! four hundred francs at one slap, for a flower-maker—that's too magnificent! You aim too high, my love!"

"Well! what next?"

"Why, there is no next."

"Didn't Henriette send to you again?"

"Not at all! she made the best of it, like a brave heart. She said to herself: 'There's a young buck who isn't such an ass as I thought.'—And I am sure that I have gained greatly in her esteem; that pleases me."

"I can see nothing in all this to interfere with our going now to call for the young ladies and taking them to the Opéra ball, as we agreed."

"Ah! you can't, eh? Well, when I went out for a stroll before dinner, I thought I would find out if the catastrophe had had any results, and I walked as far as Rue de Saintonge, where our turtle-doves had their perch. I asked the concierge: 'Is Mademoiselle Henriette in?'—Thereupon that counterfeit Swiss looked at me with rather a bantering expression, and replied:

"'No, monsieur, those young women have gone away.'

"'Will they return soon?'

"'Return! oh! I fancy they won't return here; they carried off their belongings very cunningly in little bundles, and then they skipped. The landlord came and made a row with me about it, and said that I didn't ought to let anything go out of the house. But what can you expect? the women nowadays wear skirts puffed out like balloons, so, you see, those girls could have stuffed their whole wardrobe underneath. Ah! those skirts are very deceitful; they'll be the cause of many poufs.'[C]

"'But,' I said to the man, 'what is the landlord afraid of? Those young women had some very nice furniture, and I don't suppose they put their mattresses and their wardrobes with glass doors under their skirts, did they? And this isn't a furnished lodging-house; they had their own furniture, didn't they?'

"'That is to say, they had their own furniture to pay for; the upholsterer wanted to carry it away this morning; but not much—the landlord must be paid first and they owed him for three quarters. For all that, it's mighty unpleasant; it always ends in a row! When the upholsterer found that he couldn't carry away his furniture, he was crazy. "You ought not to have let those women go!" he said; "I'd have had them put in prison." And so on and so forth. Have I any right to keep tenants from going out, I'd like to know?'

"'No, certainly you haven't any such right; a concierge's authority doesn't go so far as that; perhaps it may come, though, I shouldn't be surprised! They do some pretty rough things already, but they haven't got to the point of imprisoning tenants.'

"'Never mind; when we let rooms to two girls together again, it will be hotter than it is now!'

"'Do you think there's less danger when they are alone?'

"'Certainly, one can keep a closer watch on them then; but when there's two of 'em, why, they do nothing else besides going back and forth before one's eyes, and it's impossible to know who goes in and out—so one gets totally bewildered.'

"That, my dear fellow, is the conversation I had with the concierge of those damsels, who strike me as being decidedly a bad lot. You see that it's no use for us to go to their last lodgings to look for them."

"I see that the letter wasn't so far from the truth, when it said that they would be turned out if they did not pay."

"They succeeded in escaping unaided. I asked how much the upholsterer claimed: it was eight or nine hundred francs, I believe; but if I had turned in four hundred francs, do you imagine for a moment that they would have given it to their creditor? Ah! how little you know of that breed! They would have vanished with my money, that's all!"

"Do you think so?"

"In other words, I am sure of it. 'Brought up in the harem, I know all its devious ways.' These girls pass their lives making poufs; then they make a trip to England, to try to make the conquest of some lord; and when they don't succeed in that, they are obliged to sell everything, even to their chemises, to pay for their return trip to Paris. I tell you that I know the whole business, step by step."

"It's a pity! I regret Amélia, for she was very pretty!"

"There are others! Paris swarms with pretty women. Henriette was very attractive, too; pink and white, Watteau style."

"I am terribly annoyed."

"But you're not unprovided for; you must fall back on your beautiful brunette, whom I christened the Andalusian—your Madame de Sainte-Suzanne, a woman almost comme il faut; at all events, she is pleased now to affect the manners of one."

"I told you that I had broken with that lady; she insisted on having me always at her side, and questioned me about every step I took; I had to render her an account of my most trivial acts, and it was downright slavery! A little more and she would have confined me to my room. You can understand that that sort of thing didn't suit me!"

"Bless me! not unless you're an absolute idiot. Still, there are men stupid enough to allow their mistresses to lead them by the nose. There's Dutaillis, for example; he can't take a step for fear of a row! When he goes out, it's: 'Where are you going?' When he comes in: 'Where have you been? what makes you so red? why are you so pale? why is your collar so rumpled? where did you pick up all that mud?'—There's no end to it. And the jackass takes a world of pains to prove that he's no redder than usual, and that his collar rumpled of itself because it wasn't well starched! And the prettiest part of it all is that he'll end by marrying his Virginette! What a