Conscience — Complete

“It is Sunday with you, my dear sir.”

“But I am not at the end of my life nor at the end of my energy, and I assure you that my energy makes me capable of many things.”

“I do not doubt it; I know what energy can do. Tell a Greek who is dying of hunger to go to heaven and he will go

“But I do not see that you have started for heaven.”

A smile of derision, accompanied by a grimace, crossed Caffies face. Before becoming the usurer of the Rue Sainte-Anne, whom every one called a rascal, he had been attorney in the country, deputy judge, and if unmerited evils had obliged him to resign and to hide the unpleasant circumstances in Paris, he never lost an opportunity to prove that by education he was far above his present position. Finding this new client a man of learning, he was glad to make quotations that he thought would make him worthy of consideration.

“It is, perhaps, because I am not Greek,” Saniel replied; “but I am an Auvergnat, and the men of my country have great physical strength.”

Caffie shook his head.

“My dear sir,” he said, “I might as well tell you frankly that I do not believe the thing can be done. I would do it myself willingly, because I read intelligence in your face, and resolution in your whole person, which inspire me with confidence in you; but I have no money to put into such speculations. I can only be, as usual, a go-between—that is to say, I can propose the loan to one of my clients, but I do not know one who would be contented with the guarantee of a future that is more or less uncertain. There are so many doctors in Paris who are in your position.”

Saniel rose.

“Are you going?” cried Caffie.

“But—”

“Sit down, my dear sir! It is no use to throw the handle after the axe. You make me a proposition, and I show you the difficulties in the way, but I do not say there is no way to extricate you from embarrassment. I must look around. I have known you only a few minutes; but it does not take long to appreciate a man like you, and, frankly, you inspire me with great interest.”

What did he wish? Saniel was not simple enough to be caught by words, nor was he a fop who accepts with gaping mouth all the compliments addressed to him. Why did he inspire a sudden interest in this man who had the reputation of pushing business matters to extremes? He would find out. In the mean time he would be on his guard.

“I thank you for your sympathy,” he said.

“I shall prove to you that it is real, and that it may become useful. You come to me because you want three thousand francs. I hope I may find them for you, and I promise to try, though it will be difficult, very difficult. They will make you secure for the present. But will they assure your future? that is, will they permit you to continue the important works of which you have spoken to me, and on which your future depends? No. Your struggles will soon begin again. And you must shake yourself clear from such cares in order to secure for yourself the liberty that is indispensable if you wish to advance rapidly. And to obtain this freedom from cares and this liberty, I see only one way—you must marry.”

CHAPTER IV. ‘TWIXT THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA

Saniel, who was on his guard and expected some sort of roguery from this man, had not foreseen that these expressions of interest were leading up to a proposal of marriage, and an exclamation of surprise escaped him. But it was lost in the sound of the door-bell, which rang at that moment.

Caffie rose. “How disagreeable it is not to have a clerk!” he said.

He went to open the door with an eagerness that he had not shown to Saniel, which proved that he had no fear of admitting people when he was not alone.

It was a clerk from the bank.

“You will permit me,” Caffie said, on returning to his office. “It will take but an instant.”

The clerk took a paper from his portfolio and handed it to Caffie.

Caffie drew a key from the pocket of his vest, with which he opened the iron safe placed behind his desk, and turning his back to Saniel and the clerk counted the bills which they heard rustle in his hands. Presently he rose, and closing the door of the safe he placed under the lamp the package of bills that he had counted. The clerk then counted them, and placing them in his portfolio took his leave.

“Close the door when you go out,” Caffie said, who was already seated in his arm-chair.

“Do not be afraid.”

When the clerk was gone Caffie apologized for the interruption.

“Let us continue our conversation, my dear sir. I told you that there is only one way to relieve you permanently from embarrassment, and that way you will find is in a good marriage, that will place ‘hic et nunc’ a reasonable sum at your disposal.”

“But it would be folly for me to marry now, when I have no position to offer a wife.”

“And your future, of which you have just spoken with so much assurance, have you no faith in that?”

“An absolute faith—as firm to-day as when I first began the battle of life, only brighter. However, as others have not the same reasons that I have to hope and believe what I hope and believe, it is quite natural that they should feel doubts of my future. You felt it yourself instantly in not finding it a good guarantee for the small loan of three thousand francs.”

“A loan and marriage are not the same thing. A loan relieves you temporarily, and leaves you in a state to contract several others successively, which, you must acknowledge, weakens the guarantee that you offer. While a marriage instantly opens to you the road that your ambition wishes to travel.”

“I have never thought of marriage.”

“If you should think of it?”

“There must be a woman first of all.”

“If I should propose one, what would you say?”

“But—”

“You are surprised?”

“I confess that I am.”

“My dear sir, I am the friend of my clients, and for many of them—I dare to say it—a father. And having much affection for a young woman, and for the daughter of one of my friends, while listening to you I thought that one or the other might be the woman you need. Both have fortunes, and both possess physical attractions that a handsome man like yourself has a right to demand. And for the rest, I have their photographs, and you may see for yourself what they are.”

He opened a drawer in his desk, and took from it a package of photographs. As he turned them over Saniel saw that they were all portraits of women. Presently he selected two and handed them to Saniel.

One represented a woman from thirty-eight to forty years, corpulent, robust, covered with horrible cheap jewelry that she had evidently put on for the purpose of being photographed. The other was a young girl of about twenty years, pretty, simply and elegantly dressed, whose distinguished and reserved physiognomy was a strong contrast to the first portrait.

While Saniel looked at these pictures Caffie studied him, trying to discover the effect they produced.

“Now that you have seen them,” he said, “let us talk of them a little. If you knew me better, my dear sir, you would know that I am frankness itself, and in business my principle is to tell everything, the good and the bad, so that my clients are responsible for the decisions they make. In reality, there is nothing bad about these two persons, because, if there were, I would not propose them to you. But there are certain things that my delicacy compels me to point out to you, which I do frankly, feeling certain that a man like you is not the slave of narrow prejudices.”

An expression of pain passed over his face, and he clasped his jaw with both hands.

“You suffer?” Saniel asked.

“Yes, from my teeth, cruelly. Pardon me that I show it; I know by myself that nothing is more annoying than the sight of the sufferings of others.”

“At least not to doctors.”

“Never mind; we will return to my clients. This one”—and he touched the portrait of the bejewelled woman—“is, as you have divined already, a widow, a very amiable widow. Perhaps she is a little older than you are, but that is nothing. Your experience must have taught you that the man who wishes to be loved, tenderly loved, pampered, caressed, spoiled, should marry a woman older than himself, who will treat him as a husband and as a son. Her first husband was a careful merchant, who, had he lived, would have made a large fortune in the butcher business”—he mumbled this word instead of pronouncing it clearly—“but although he died just at the time when his affairs were beginning to develop, he left twenty thousand pounds’ income to his wife. As I have told you what is good, I must tell you what is to be regretted. Carried away by gay companions, this intelligent man became addicted to intemperance, and from drinking at saloons she soon took to drinking at home, and his wife drank with him. I have every reason to believe that she has reformed; but, if it is otherwise, you, a doctor, can easily cure her—”

“You believe it?”

“Without doubt. However, if it is impossible, you need only let her alone, and her vice will soon carry her off; and, as the contract will be made according to my wishes in view of such an event, you will find yourself invested with a fortune and unencumbered with a wife.”

“And the other?” Saniel said, who had listened silently to this curious explanation of the situation that Caffie made with the most perfect good-nature. So grave were the circumstances that he could not help being amused at this diplomacy.

“I expected your demand,” replied the agent with a shrewd smile. “And if I spoke of this amiable widow it was rather to acquit my conscience than with any hope of succeeding. However free from prejudices one may be, one always retains a few. I understand yours, and more than that, I share them. Happily, what I am now about to tell you is something quite different. Take her photograph, my dear sir, and look at it while I talk. A charming face, is it not? She has been finely educated at a fashionable convent. In a word, a pearl, that you shall wear. And now I must tell you the flaw, for there is one. Who is blameless? The daughter of one of our leading actresses, after leaving the convent she returned to live with her mother. It was there, in this environment-ahem! ahem!—that an accident happened to her. To be brief, she has a sweet little child that the father would have recognized assuredly, had he not been already married. But at least he has provided for its future by an endowment of two hundred thousand francs, in such a way that whoever marries the mother and legitimizes the child will enjoy the interest of this sum until the child’s majority. If that ever arrives—these little creatures are so fragile! You being a physician, you know more about that than any one. In case of an accident the father will inherit half the money from his son; and if it seems cruel for an own father to inherit from his own son, it is quite a different thing when it is a stranger who receives the fortune. This is all, my dear sir, plainly and frankly, and I will not do you the injury to suppose that you do not see the advantages of what I have said to you without need of my insisting further. If I have not explained clearly—”

“But nothing is more clear.”

“—it is the fault of this pain that paralyzes me.”

And he groaned while holding his jaw.

“You have a troublesome tooth?” Saniel said, with the tone of a physician who questions a patient.

“All my teeth trouble me. To tell the truth, they are all going to pieces.”

“Have you consulted a doctor?”

“Neither a doctor nor a dentist. I have faith in medicine, of course; but when I consult doctors, which seldom happens, I notice that they think much more of their own affairs than of what I am saying, and that keeps me away from them. But, my dear sir, when a client consults me, I put myself in his place.”

While he spoke, Saniel examined him, which he had not done until this moment, and he saw the characteristic signs of rapid consumption. His clothes hung on him as if made for a man twice his size, and his face was red and shining, as if he were covered with a coating of cherry jelly.

“Will you show me your teeth?” he asked. “It may be possible to relieve your sufferings.”

“Do you think so?”

The examination did not last long.

“Your mouth is often dry, is it not?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You are often thirsty?”

“Always.”

“Do you sleep well?”

“No.”

“Your sight troubles you?”

“Yes.”

“Have you a good appetite?”

“Yes, I eat heartily; and the more I eat the thinner I become. I am turning into a skeleton.”

“I see that you have scars from boils on the back of your neck.”

“They made me suffer enough, the rascals; but they are gone as they came. Hang it, one is no longer young at seventy-two years; one has small vexations. They are small vexations, are they not?”

“Certainly. With some precautions and a diet that I shall prescribe, if you wish, you will soon be better. I will give you a prescription that will relieve your toothache.”

“We will talk of this again, because we shall have occasion to meet if, as I presume, you appreciate the advantages of the proposition that I have made you.”

“I must have time to reflect.”

“Nothing is more reasonable. There is no hurry.”

“But I am in a hurry because, if I do not pay Jardine, I shall find myself in the street, which would not be a position to offer to a wife.”

“In the street? Oh, things will not come to such a pass as that! What are the prosecutions?”

“They will soon begin; Jardine has already threatened me.”

“They are going to begin? Then they have not begun. If he does, as we presume he will, proceed by a replevin, we shall have sufficient time before the judgment. Do you owe anything to your landlord?”

“The lease expired on the fifteenth.”

“Do not pay it.”

“That is easy; it is the only thing that is easy for me to do.”

“It is an obstacle in the way of your Jardine, and may stop him a moment. We can manage this way more easily. The important thing is to warn me as soon as the fire begins. ‘Au revoir’, my dear Sir.”

CHAPTER V. A CHARMING VISITOR

Although Saniel had had no experience in business, he was not simple enough not to know that in refusing him this loan Caffie meant to make use of him.

“It is very simple,” he said to himself, as he went downstairs. “He undertakes to manage my affairs, and in such a way that some day I shall have to save myself by marrying that charming girl. What a scoundrel!”

However, the situation was such that he was glad to avail himself of the assistance of this scoundrel. At least, some time was gained, and when Jardine found that he was not disposed to let himself be slaughtered, he might accept a reasonable arrangement. But he must manage so that Caffie would not prevent this arrangement.

Unfortunately, he felt himself hardly capable of such manoeuvring, having been always straightforward, his eyes fixed on the end he wished to attain, and thinking only of the work through which he would attain it. And now he must act the part of a diplomat, submitting to craftiness and rogueries that were not at all in accord with his open nature. He had begun by not telling Caffie, instantly, what he thought of his propositions; but it is more difficult to act than to control one’s self, to speak than to be silent.

What would he say, what would he do, when the time for action came?

He reached his house without having decided anything, and as he passed before the concierge’s lodge absorbed in thought, he heard some one call him.

“Doctor, come in a moment, I beg of you.”

He thought some one wished to consult him, some countryman who had waited for his return; and, although he did not feel like listening patiently to idle complainings, he turned back and entered the lodge.

“Some one brought this,” the concierge said, handing him a paper that was stamped and covered with a running handwriting. “This” was the beginning of the fire of which Caffie had spoken. Without reading it, Saniel put it in his pocket and turned to go; but the concierge detained him.

“I would like to say two words to ‘monchieur le docteur’ about this paper.”

“Have you read it?”

“No, but I talked with the officer who gave it to me, and he told me what it meant. It is unfortunate, doctor.”

To be pitied by his concierge! This was too much.

“It is not as he told you,” he replied, haughtily.

“So much the better. I am glad for you and for me. You can pay my little bill.”

“Give it to me.”

“I have given it to you twice already, but I have a copy. Here it is.”

To be sued by a creditor paralyzed Saniel; he was stunned, crushed, humiliated, and could only answer stupidly. Taking the bill that the concierge handed him, he put it in his pocket and stammered a few words.

“You see, doctor, I must say what has been in my heart a long time. You are my countryman, and I esteem you too much not to speak. In taking your apartment and engaging your upholsterer, you did too much. You ruin yourself. Give up your apartment, and take the one opposite that costs less than half, and you will get on. You will not be obliged to leave this quarter. What will become of our neighbors if you leave us? You are a good doctor; everybody knows it and says so. And now, as for my bill, it is understood that I shall be paid first, shall I not?”

“As soon as I have the money I will pay you.”

“It is a promise?”

“I promise you.”

“Thank you very much.”

“If it could be to-morrow, it would suit me. I am not rich, you know, but I have always paid the gas-bill for your experiments.”

With the paper in his pocket, Saniel returned to Caffie, who was just going out, and to whom he gave it.

“I will see about it this, evening,” said the man of business. “Just now I am going to dinner. Do not worry. To-morrow I will do what is necessary. Good-evening. I am dying of hunger.”

But three days before, Saniel emptied his purse to soothe his upholsterer by an instalment as large as he was able to make it, keeping only five francs for himself, and with the few sous left he could not go to a restaurant, not even the lowest and cheapest. He could only buy some bread for his supper, and eat it while working, as he had often done before.

But when he returned to his rooms he was not in a state of mind to write an article that must be delivered that evening. Among other things that he had undertaken was one, and not the least fastidious, which consisted in giving, by correspondence, advice to the subscribers of a fashion magazine, or, more exactly speaking, to recommend, in the form of medical advice, all the cosmetics, depilatories, elixirs, dyes, essences, oils, creams, soaps, pomades, toothpowders, rouges, and also all the chemists’ specialties, to which their inventors wished to give an authority that the public, which believes itself acute, refused to the simple advertisement on the last page. With his ambition and the career before him, he would never have consented to carry on this correspondence under his own name. He did it for a neighboring doctor, a simple man, who was not so cautious, and who signed his name to these letters, glad to get clients from any quarter. For his trouble, Saniel took this doctor’s place during Sunday in summer, and from time to time received a box of perfumery or quack medicines, which he sold at a low price when occasion offered.

Every week he received the list of cosmetics and specialties that he must make use of in his correspondence, no matter how he recommended them, whether in answer to letters that were really addressed to him, or by inventing questions that gave him the opportunity to introduce them.

He began to consult this list and the pile of letters from subscribers that the magazine had sent him, when the doorbell rang. Perhaps it was a patient, the good patient whom he had expected for four years. He left his desk to open the door.

It was his coal man, who came with his bill.

“I will stop some day when I am near you,” Saniel said. “I am in a hurry this evening.”

“And I am in a hurry, too; I must pay a large bill tomorrow, and I count upon having some money from you.”

“I have no money here.”

After a long talk he got rid of the man and returned to his desk. He had answered but a few of the many letters when his bell rang again. This time he would not open the door; it was a creditor, without doubt. And he continued his correspondence.

But for four years he had waited for chance to draw him a good ticket in the lottery of life—a rich patient afflicted with a cyst or a tumor that he would take to a fashionable surgeon, who would divide with him the ten or fifteen thousand francs that he would receive for the operation. In that case he would be saved.

He ran to the door. The patient with the cyst presented himself in the form of a small bearded man with a red face, wearing over his vest the wine-merchant’s apron of coarse black cloth. In fact, it was the wine merchant from the corner, who, having heard of the officer’s visit, came to ask for the payment of his bill for furnishing wine for three months.

A scene similar to that which he had had with the coal merchant, but more violent, took place, and it was only by threatening to put him out of the door that Saniel got rid of the man, who went away declaring that he would come the next morning with an officer.

Saniel returned to his work.

His pen flew over the paper, when a noise made him raise his head. Either he had not closed the door tightly, or his servant was entering with his key. What did he want? He did not employ him all day, but only during his office hours, to put his rooms in order and to open the door for his clients.

As Saniel rose to go and see who it was, there was a knock at the door. It was his servant, with a blank and embarrassed air.

“What is the matter, Joseph?”

“I thought I should find you, sir, so I came.”

“Why?”

Joseph hesitated; then, taking courage, he said volubly, while lowering his eyes:

“I came to ask, sir, if you will pay me my month, which expired on the fifteenth, because there is need of money at my house; if there was not need of money I would not have come. If you wish, sir, I will release you—”

“How?”

“I will take the coat that you made me order a month ago; I am quite sure it is not worth what is due me, but it is always so.”

“Take the coat.”

Joseph took the coat from the wardrobe in the hall, and rolled it in a newspaper.

“Of course you will not expect me in the morning,” he said, as he put his key on the table. “I must look out for another place.”

“Very well, I shall not expect you.”

“Good-evening, sir.”

And Joseph hurried away as quickly as possible.

Left alone, Saniel did not return to his work immediately, but throwing himself in an armchair he cast a melancholy glance around his office and through the open door into the parlor. In the faint light of the candle he saw the large armchairs methodically placed each side of the chimney, the curtains at the windows lost in shadow, and all the furniture which for four years had cost him so many efforts. He had long been the prisoner of this Louis XIV camlet, and he was now going to be executed. A beautiful affair, truly, brilliant and able! All this had been used only by the poor Auvergnats, without Saniel enjoying it at all, for he had neither the bourgeois taste for ornaments nor the desire for elegance. A movement of anger and revolt against himself made him strike his desk with his fist. What a fool he had been!

The bell rang again. This time, not expecting a rich patient, he would not open it. After a moment a slight tap was heard on the panel. He rose quickly and ran to open the door.

A woman threw herself into his arms.

“O my dearest! I am so glad to find you at home!”

CHAPTER VI. A SWEET CONSOLER

She passed her arm about him and pressed him to her, and with arms entwined they entered the study.

“How glad I am!” she said. “What a good idea I had!”

With a quick movement she took off her long gray cloak that enveloped her from head to foot.

“And are you glad?” she asked, as she stood looking at him.

“Can you ask that?”

“Only to hear you say that you are.”

“Are you not my only joy, the sweet lamp that gives me light in the cavern where I work day and night?”

“Dear Victor!”

She was a tall, slender young woman with chestnut hair, whose thick curls clustering about her forehead almost touched her eyebrows. Her beautiful eyes were dark, her nose short, while her superb teeth and rich, ruby-colored lips gave her the effect of a pretty doll; and she had gayety, playful vivacity, gracious effrontery, and a passionate caressing glance. Dressed extravagantly, like the Parisian woman who has not a sou, but who adorns everything she wears, she had an ease, a freedom, a natural elegance that was charming. With this she had the voice of a child, a joyous laugh, and an expression of sensibility on her fresh face.

“I have come to dine with you,” she said, gayly, “and I am so hungry.”

He made a gesture that was not lost upon her.

“Do I disturb you?” she asked, uneasily.

“Not at all.”

“Must you go out?”

“No.”

“Then why did you make a gesture that showed indifference, or, at least, embarrassment?”

“You are mistaken, my little Phillis.”

“With any one else I might be mistaken, but with you it is impossible. You know that between us words are not necessary; that I read in your eyes what you would say, in your face what you think and feel. Is it not always so when one loves—as I love you?”

He took her in his arms and kissed her long and tenderly. Then going to a chair on which he had thrown his coat, he drew from the pocket the bread that he had bought.

“This is my dinner,” he said, showing the bread.

“Oh! I must scold you. Work is making you lose your head. Can you not take time to eat?”

He smiled sadly.

“It is not time that I want.”

He fumbled in his pocket and brought out three big sous.

“I cannot dine at a restaurant with six sous.”

She threw herself in his arms.

“O dearest, forgive me!” she cried. “Poor, dear martyr! Dear, great man! It is I who accuse you, when I ought to embrace your knees. And you do not scold me; a sad smile is your only reply. And it is really so bad as that! Nothing to eat!”

“Bread is very good eating. If I might be assured that I shall always have some!”

“Well, to-day you shall have something more and better. This morning, seeing the storm, an idea came to me associated with you. It is quite natural, since you are always in my heart and in my thoughts. I told mamma that if the storm continued I would dine at the pension. You can imagine with what joy I listened to the wind all day, and watched the rain and leaves falling, and the dead branches waving in the whirlwind. Thank God, the weather was bad enough for mamma to believe me safe at the pension; and here I am. But we must not fast. I shall go and buy something to eat, and we will play at making dinner by the fire, which will be far more amusing than going to a restaurant.”

She put on her cloak quickly.

“Set the table while I make my purchases.”

“I have my article to finish that will be sent for at eight o’clock. Just think, I have three tonics to recommend, four preparations of iron, a dye, two capillary lotions, an opiate, and I don’t know how many soaps and powders. What a business!”

“Very well, then, do not trouble yourself about the table; we will set it together when you have finished, and that will be much more amusing.”

“You take everything in good part.”

“Is it better to look on the dark side? I shall soon return.”

She went to the door.

“Do not be extravagant,” he said.

“There is no danger,” she replied, striking her pocket.

Then, returning to him, she embraced him passionately.

“Work!”

And she ran out.

They had loved each other for two years. At the time they met, Saniel was giving a course of lectures on anatomy at a young ladies’ school just outside of Paris, and every time he went out there he saw a young woman whom he could not help noticing. She came and went on the same trains that he did, and gave lessons in a rival school. As she frequently carried under her arm a large cartoon, and sometimes a plaster cast, he concluded that she gave lessons in drawing. At first he paid no attention to her. What was she to him? He had more important things in his head than women. But little by little, and because she was reserved and discreet, he was struck by the vivacity and gayety of her expression. He really enjoyed looking at this pretty and pleasing young woman. However, his looks said nothing; if their eyes smiled when they met, that was all; they did not make each other’s acquaintance. When they left the train they did not notice each other; if he took the left side of the street, she took the other, and vice versa. This state of things lasted several months without a word having been exchanged between them; in due time they learned each other’s names and professions. She was a professor of drawing, as he supposed, the daughter of an artist who had been dead several years, and was called Mademoiselle Phillis Cormier. He was a physician for whom a brilliant future was prophesied, a man of power, who would some day be famous; and, very naturally, their attitude remained the same. There was no particular reason why it should change. But accident made a reason. One summer day, at the hour when they ordinarily took the train back to Paris, the sky suddenly became overcast, and it was evident that a violent storm was approaching. Saniel saw Phillis hurrying to the station without an umbrella, and, as some friend had lent him one, he decided to speak to her for the first time.

“It seems as if the storm would overtake us before we reach the station. As you have no umbrella, will you permit me to walk beside you, and to shelter you with mine?”

She replied with a smile, and they walked side by side until the rain began to fall, when she drew nearer to him, and they entered the station talking gayly.

“Your umbrella is better than Virginia’s skirt,” she said.

“And what is Virginia’s skirt?”

“Have you not read Paul and Virginia?”

“No.”

She looked at him with a mocking smile, wondering what superior men read.

Not only had he not read Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s romance, nor any others, but he had never been in love. He knew nothing of the affairs of the heart nor of the imagination. Leisure must be had for light reading, and even more for love, for they require a liberty of mind and an independence of life that he had not. Where could he find time to read novels? When and how could he pay attention to a woman? Those that he had known since his arrival in Paris had not had the slightest influence over him, and he retained only faint memories of them. On the contrary, thinking of this walk in the rain, he remembered this young girl with a vividness entirely new to him. She made a strong impression on him, and it remained. He saw her again, with her smile that showed her brilliant teeth, he heard the music of her voice, and the bare plain that he had walked so many times now seemed the most beautiful country in the world to him. Evidently there was a change in him; something was awakened in his soul; for the first time he discovered that the hollow and muscular conoid organ called the heart had a use besides for the circulation of blood.

What a surprise and what a disappointment! Was he going to be simpleton enough to love this young girl and entangle his life, already so hard and heavily weighted, with a woman? A fine thing, truly, and nature had built him to play the lover! It is true that only those who wish it fall in love, and he knew the power of will by experience.

But he soon lost confidence in himself. Away from Phillis he could do as he wished, but with her it was as she wished. With one look she mastered him. He met her, furious at the influence she exercised over him, and against which he had struggled since their last meeting; he left her, ravished at feeling how profoundly he loved her.

To a man whose life had been ruled by reason and logic until this moment, these contradictions were exasperating; and he only excused himself for submitting to them by saying that they could in no way modify the line of conduct that he had traced out for himself, nor make him deviate from the road that he followed.

Rich, or even with a small fortune, he might—when he was with her and in her power—let himself be carried away; but when he was dying of hunger he was not going to commit the folly of taking a wife. What would he have to give her? Misery, nothing but misery; and shame, in default of any other reason, would forever prevent him from offering himself to her.

She was the daughter of an artist who, after years of struggle, died at the moment when fortune was beginning to smile upon him. Ten years more of work, and he would have left his family, if not rich, at least in comfortable circumstances. In reality, he left nothing but ruin. The hotel he built was sold, and, after the debts were paid, nothing remained but some furniture. His widow, son, and daughter must work. The widow, having no trade, took in sewing; the son left college to become the clerk of a money-lender named Caffie; the daughter, who, happily for her, had learned to draw and paint under her father’s direction, obtained pupils, and designed menacs for the stationers, and painted silk fans and boxes. They lived with great economy, submitting to many privations. The brother, weary of his monotonous existence and of the exactions of his master, left them to try his fortunes in America.

If Saniel ever married, which he doubted, certainly he would not marry a woman situated as Phillis was.

This reflection was reassuring, and he was more devoted to her. Why should he not enjoy the delicious pleasure of seeing her and listening to her? His life was neither gay nor happy; he felt perfectly sure of himself, and, as he knew her now, he was also sure of her—a brave and honest girl. Otherwise, how had she divined that he loved her?

They continued to see each other with a pleasure that seemed equal on both sides, meeting in the station, arranging to take the same trains, and talking freely and gayly.

Things went on this way until the approach of vacation, when they decided to take a walk after their last lesson, instead of returning immediately to Paris.

When the day came the sun was very hot; they had walked some distance, when Phillis expressed a wish to rest for a few minutes. They seated themselves in a shady copse, and soon found themselves in each other’s arms.

Since then Saniel had never spoken of marriage, and neither had Phillis.

They loved each other.

CHAPTER VII. A LITTLE DINNER FOR TWO

Saniel was still at work when Phillis returned.

“You have not yet finished, dear?”

“Give me time to cure, by correspondence, a malady that has not yielded to the care of ten physicians, and I am yours.”

In three lines he finished the letter, and left his desk.

“I am ready. What shall I do?”

“Help me to take things out of my pockets.”

“Don’t press too hard,” she said as he took each parcel.

At last the pockets were empty.

“Where shall we dine?” she asked.

“Here, as the dining-room is transformed into a laboratory.”

“Then let us begin by making a good fire. I wet my feet coming from the station.”

“I do not know whether there is any wood.”

“Let us see.”

She took the candle and they passed into the kitchen, which, like the dining-room, was a laboratory, a stable where Saniel kept in cages pigs from India and rabbits for his experiments, and where Joseph heaped pell-mell the things that were in his way, without paying any attention to the stove in which there never had been a fire. But their search was vain; there was everything in this kitchen except fire-wood.

“Do you value these boxes?” she asked, caressing a little pig that she had taken in her arms.

“Not at all; they enclosed the perfumes and tonics, but they are useless now.”

They returned to the office, Saniel carrying the boxes.

“We will set the table here,” she said, gayly, for Saniel told her that the dining-room was uninviting, as it was a small bacteriological laboratory.

The table was set by Phillis, who went and came, walking about with a gracefulness that Saniel admired.

“You are doing nothing,” she said.

“I am watching you and thinking.”

“And the result of these thoughts?”

“It is that you have a fund of good-humor and gayety, an exuberance of life, that would enliven a man condemned to death.”

“And what would have become of us, I should like to know, if I had been melancholy and discouraged when we lost my poor papa? He was joy itself, singing all day long, laughing and joking. He brought me up, and I am like him. Mamma, as you know, is melancholy and nervous, looking on the dark side, and Florentin is like her. I obtained a place for Florentin, I found work for mamma and for myself. We all took courage, and gradually we became calm.”

She looked at him with a smile that said:

“Will you let me do for you what I have done for others?”

But she did not speak these words. On the contrary, she immediately endeavored to destroy the impression which she believed her words had made upon him.

“Go and bring some water,” she said, “and I will light the fire.”

When he returned, carrying a carafe, the fire blazed brightly, lighting the whole room. Phillis was seated at the desk, writing.

“What are you doing?” he asked in surprise.

“I am writing our menu, for you know we are not going to sit down at the table like the bourgeois. How do you like it?”

She read it to him.

“Sardines de Nantes.”

“Cuisse de dinde rotie.”

“Terrine de pate de foie gras aux truffes du Perigord.”

“But this is a feast.”

“Did you think that I would offer you a fricandeau au jus?”

She continued:

“Fromage de Brie.”

“Choux a la creme vanillge.”

“Pomme de Normandie.”

“Wine.”

“Ah! Voila! What wine? I do not wish to deceive you. Let us put, ‘Wine from the wine-seller at the corner.’ And now we will sit down.”

As he was about to seat himself, she said:

“You do not give me your arm to conduct me to the table. If we do not do things seriously and methodically we shall not believe in them, and perhaps the Perigord truffles will change into little black pieces of anything else.”

When they were seated opposite to each other, she continued, jesting:

“My dear doctor, did you go to the representation of Don Juan, on Monday?”

And Saniel, who, in spite of all, had kept a sober face, now laughed loudly.

“Charming!” she cried, clapping her hands. “No more preoccupation; no more cares. Look into my eyes, dear Victor, and think only of the present hour, of the joy of being together, of our love.”

She reached her hand over the table, and he pressed it in his.

“Very well.” The dinner continued gayly, Saniel replying to Phillis’s smiles, who would not permit the conversation to languish. She helped him to each dish, poured out his wine, leaving her chair occasionally to put a piece of wood on the fire, and such shoutings and laughter had never been heard before in that office.

However, she noticed that, little by little, Saniel’s face, that relaxed one moment, was the next clouded by the preoccupation and bitterness that she had tried hard to chase away. She would make a new effort.

“Does not this charming little dinner give you the wish to repeat it?”

“How? Where?”

“As I am able to come this evening without making mamma uneasy, I shall find some excuse to come again next week.”

He shook his head.

“Have you engagements for the whole of next week?” she asked with uneasiness.

“Where shall I be next week, to-morrow, in a few days?”

“You alarm me. Explain, I beg of you. O Victor, have pity! Do not leave me in suspense.”

“You are right; I ought to tell you everything, and not let your tender heart torment itself, trying to explain my preoccupation.”

“If you have cares, do you not esteem me enough to let me share them with you? You know that I love you; you only, to-day, to-morrow, forever!”

Saniel had not left her ignorant of the difficulties of his position, but he had not entered into details, preferring to speak of his hopes rather than of his present misery.

The story that he had already told to Glady and Caffie he now told to Phillis, adding what had passed with the concierge, the wine-seller, the coal man, and Joseph.

She listened, stupefied.

“He took your coat?” she murmured.

“That was what he came for.”

“And to-morrow?”

“Ah! to-morrow—to-morrow!”

“Working so hard as you have, how did you come to such a pass?”

“Like you, I believed in the virtue of work, and look at me! Because I felt within me a will that nothing could weaken, a strength that nothing could fatigue, a courage that nothing could, dishearten, I imagined that I was armed for battle in such a way that I should never be conquered, and I am conquered, as much by the fault of circumstances as by my own—”

“And in what are you to blame, poor dear?”

“For my ignorance of life, stupidity, presumption, and blindness. If I had been less simple, should I have been taken in by Jardine’s propositions? Should I have accepted this furniture, this apartment? He told me that the papers he made me sign were mere formalities, that in reality I might pay when I could, and that he would be content with a fair interest. That seemed reasonable, and, without inquiring further, I accepted, happy and delighted to have a home, feeling sure of having strength to bear this burden. To have confidence in one’s self is strength, but it is also weakness. Because you love me you do not know me; you do not see me as I am. In reality, I am not sociable, and I lack, absolutely, suppleness, delicacy, politeness, as much in my character as in my manners. Being so, how can I obtain a large practice, or succeed, unless it is by some stroke of luck? I have counted on the luck, but its hour has not yet sounded. Because I lack suppleness I have not been able to win the sympathy or interest of my masters. They see only my reserve; and because I stay away from them, as much through timidity as pride, they do not come to me—which is quite natural, I admit. And because I have not yielded my ideas to the authority of others, they have taken a dislike to me, which is still more natural. Because I lack politeness, and am still an Auvergnat, heavy and awkward as nature made me, men of the world disdain me, judging me by my exterior, which they see and dislike. More wary, more sly, more experienced, I should be, at least, sustained by friendship, but I have given no thought to it. What good is it? I had no need of it, my force was sufficient. I find it more easy to make myself feared than loved. Thus formed, there are only two things for me to do: remain in my poor room in the Hotel du Senat, living by giving lessons and by work from the booksellers, until the examination and admission to the central bureau; or to establish myself in an out-of-the-way quarter at Belleville, Montrouge, or elsewhere, and there practise among people who will demand neither politeness nor fine manners. As these two ways are reasonable, I have made up my mind to neither. Belleville, because I should work only with my legs, like one of my comrades whom I saw work at Villette: ‘Your tongue, good. Your arm, good.’ And while he is supposed to be feeling the pulse of the patient with one hand, with the other he is writing his prescription: ‘Vomitive, purgative, forty sous;’ and he hurries away, his diagnosis having taken less than five minutes; he had no time to waste. I object to the Hotel du Senat because I have had enough of it, and it was there that Jardine tempted me with his proposals. See what he has brought me to!”

“And now?”