the flickering candles in glass globes; he could abandon himself without reserve to his feelings. He drew his handkerchief, he was choking; his eyes were filled with tears. A young man almost always pays with tears the fees of his apprenticeship in society. In two or three years, he will laugh at the misfortune that now drives him to despair. After being deceived, he will deceive in his turn; but he will never again be so foolish as to fix his fancy on a coquette, and it may be that some hearts that love him sincerely will be rejected by him, for the innocent often have to pay for the guilty. But, let us wait: it is possible that Frédéric will always retain that emotional nature, that constancy in love, which now cause him to regret the loss of a heart that he never possessed.

The words faithless, fickle, traitress, issued from his mouth, followed by long sighs. For more than half an hour he had been buried in his reflections. The candles had gone out, the music had ceased. Several people passed him without attracting his attention, nor was he, sitting in a dark corner, noticed by them. Some ladies came into the room to get their shawls, which they had left on a couch not far from Frédéric. But a familiar voice awoke the echoes in his heart: it was the voice of Madame Dernange, talking with one of her friends. They seemed in excellent spirits.

"What sport I have had!" said the notary's wife. "That colonel is really very attractive!"

"But, my dear, did you see the wry face Frédéric made?"

"Yes, indeed I did, and I was strongly tempted to laugh!"

"You drove him to despair."

"What a calamity! That young man is romantic and sentimental enough to give one the blues; he's an idiot!"

"Oh! he's a very pretty fellow, my dear; and when he has got rid of that schoolboy air, and has acquired the tone of fashionable gallantry, you'll see how popular he will be!"

"When I choose to amuse myself with him again, I have only to say a word, to glance at him, and he will be at my feet. But give me my shawl, which you have had in your hand an hour. The colonel is waiting to escort me to my carriage."

When the ladies had gone, Frédéric rose. He found it difficult to believe his ears. Shame, jealousy, anger, filled his heart, where love had already ceased to fill any space; for his self-esteem had been wounded, and wounded self-esteem soon triumphs over love.

In this frame of mind, Frédéric retired to his apartment; he slammed the door as he entered, and thereby woke Dubourg with a start.

III

TRAVELLING PLANS.—MONSIEUR MÉNARD.—EN ROUTE.

"I count four!" cried Dubourg, springing to his feet; while Frédéric, surprised to find him there, stared at him a moment in silence, then abandoned himself unreservedly to the pleasure of pouring out his heart and telling his sorrows to his friend.

"Ah! my dear Dubourg! it must have been heaven that sent you."

"No; it was my landlord, who has turned me out of the house."

"At last I have found a heart which understands mine, which will appreciate my distress and pity my torments."

"Have you been betting on the wrong side, too?"

"The treacherous, fickle creature!"

"Luck is a woman, my friend; that tells the whole story."

"Yes, and a very heartless woman, too! If you knew what she dared to say about me!"

"What's that! has luck been talking about you?"

"I am an idiot! Indeed, she is right; I was an idiot to love her! But it's all over, yes, forever! She thinks that she can bring me to her feet, enslave me again, with a word and a smile! But, no, I will not be her dupe again; I know her now!"

Dubourg rubbed his eyes and looked at Frédéric, who was pacing the floor with an air of desperation, sometimes stopping to beat his forehead, sometimes smiling bitterly.

"Who in the devil are you talking about, my dear fellow?"

"Why, Madame Dernange, that woman whose heart is as false as her face is pretty, that coquette whom I have adored for two months, and who, as I believed, loved me. But, my dear Dubourg, she was making a fool of me."

"And that surprises you? Ah! my poor Frédéric, what a boy you still are!"

"She made me believe that she reciprocated my love; and this evening, a new-comer, a colonel, has stolen her heart from me, apparently without much difficulty. I was strongly tempted to insult the fellow and kill him."

"Would that have made your Madame Dernange less fickle?"

"No, of course not; that is what I said to myself."

"In making love to her, he did what any other man would have done in his place. You ought not to bear him any grudge for it; on the contrary, you ought to be grateful to him, for he has taught you to know a woman who was making a fool of you."

"I believe you are right," said Frédéric sadly, seating himself in an easy-chair, while Dubourg, now wide awake, thought it a fitting moment to deliver a lecture to his friend.

"Listen to me, my dear Frédéric; I am older than you are, I have seen a good deal of the world, and I have a large store of experience, although I still do foolish things. Now, let me tell you that you have an unfortunate tendency to indulge in sentimental and romantic passions, which will do you a bad turn some day. You absolutely insist on being loved, adored, if you will! Damnation! do you mean to pass your life sighing? Is that the way a young man ought to make love? It isn't that you are in reality more constant than other men, for this is your seventh ill-fated passion in the year that I have known you. The great trouble is that your seven passions have all left you first, whereas you ought to have taken the initiative. However, you have always found consolation thus far, and you will this time too, I promise you. But, my friend, don't, I implore you, take on so seriously for what ought to be simply a youthful folly. You must have a certain amount of sentiment, to gratify the ladies, but you mustn't overdo it; because, you see, excess of sentiment kills sentiment; and what I am saying to you is perfectly reasonable; I am sure that your father, the count, would agree with me, if he were here, and that he would be overjoyed to find that you have a friend who gives you nothing but good advice, and who would give you a lot more—if he had not lost last night the five hundred francs his poor aunt sent him."

Frédéric had not listened very attentively to Dubourg's speech; but he had grown calmer, because the most violent tempests are always of the shortest duration, and the young man believed himself to be much more in love than he really was.

"How does it happen that I find you here in the middle of the night?" he asked Dubourg, at last.

"My dear fellow—what do you suppose?—a succession of unlucky circumstances. In the first place, my landlord, who is a genuine Vulture; secondly, an evening party at little Delphine's—you know, I took you there once; but as you must always have a touch of sentiment in everything, you never went again; and yet, she would have given you some, for your money, that would have been worth quite as much as Madame Dernange's. Lastly, I played, and I lost all that I possessed! Really, I didn't know which way to turn. But I thought of you; I know how loyal your friendship is. At first, I didn't expect to see you until to-morrow; but, finding everything in commotion in this house, it occurred to me that I might wait for you here; and I have had a nap while your charmer was being spirited away from you."

"Poor Dubourg!"

"Yes, very poor, in truth!"

"Listen; I have an idea."

"Let's hear it."

"I am sick of life in Paris."

"I shall soon be much sicker of it, as I haven't a sou."

"The sight of all these coquettes makes me ill."

"Oh! it's sure to do that."

"I propose to run away from the disloyal