“You are a philosopher, monsieur—a cynic philosopher” (and I looked at his paletôt, of which he straightway brushed the dim sleeve with his hand), “despising the foibles of humanity, above its luxuries, independent of its comforts.”

“Et vous, mademoiselle; vous êtes proprette et douillette, et affreusement insensible, par-dessus le marché.”

“But, in short, monsieur, now I think of it, you must live somewhere. Do tell me where; and what establishment of servants do you keep?”

With a fearful projection of the under lip, implying an impetus of scorn the most decided, he broke out,—

“Je vis dans un trou! I inhabit a den, miss—a cavern, where you would not put your dainty nose. Once, with base shame of speaking the whole truth, I talked about my ‘study’ in that college. Know now that this ‘study’ is my whole abode; my chamber is there and my drawing-room. As for my ‘establishment of servants”’ (mimicking my voice), “they number ten; les voilà.”

And he grimly spread, close under my eyes, his ten fingers.

“I black my boots,” pursued he savagely. “I brush my paletôt.”

“No, monsieur, it is too plain; you never do that,” was my parenthesis.

“Je fais mon lit et mon ménage. I seek my dinner in a restaurant; my supper takes care of itself; I pass days laborious and loveless, nights long and lonely; I am ferocious, and bearded, and monkish; and nothing now living in this world loves me, except some old hearts worn like my own, and some few beings, impoverished, suffering, poor in purse and in spirit, whom the kingdoms of this world own not, but to whom a will and testament not to be disputed has bequeathed the kingdom of heaven.”

“Ah, monsieur; but I know.”

“What do you know? Many things, I verily believe; yet not me, Lucy.”

“I know that you have a pleasant old house in a pleasant old square of the Basse-Ville. Why don’t you go and live there?”

“Hein?” muttered he again.

“I liked it much, monsieur, with the steps ascending to the door, the gray flags in front, the nodding trees behind—real trees, not shrubs—trees dark, high, and of old growth. And the boudoir-oratoire—you should make that room your study; it is so quiet and solemn.”

He eyed me closely. He half smiled, half coloured. “Where did you pick up all that? Who told you?” he asked.

“Nobody told me. Did I dream it, monsieur, do you think?”

“Can I enter into your visions? Can I guess a woman’s waking thoughts, much less her sleeping fantasies?”

“If I dreamt it, I saw in my dream human beings as well as a house. I saw a priest, old, bent, and gray; and a domestic, old, too, and picturesque; and a lady, splendid but strange. Her head would scarce reach to my elbow; her magnificence might ransom a duke. She wore a gown bright as lapis lazuli, a shawl worth a thousand francs. She was decked with ornaments so brilliant, I never saw any with such a beautiful sparkle; but her figure looked as if it had been broken in two and bent double. She seemed also to have outlived the common years of humanity, and to have attained those which are only labour and sorrow. She was become morose—almost malevolent; yet somebody, it appears, cared for her in her infirmities—somebody forgave her trespasses, hoping to have his trespasses forgiven. They lived together, these