hand she drew in the dress over the hips and loosened it at the throat. "You have really a good figure, but you don't know it. You must be coquette before you can be a woman. In future I'll keep an eye on you. Where do you sleep?"

"In the cellar."

"I thought so. Sleep with me to-night, then; there's room enough. All right now? I must be going."

Geneviève caught her hand and covered it with kisses.

"There, kiss my cheek," Nicole said, affected by her display of gratitude. "What a baby! You shall stay with me. Until to-night, then."

All at once she remembered her engagement, and on the moment, forgetting the new partnership so lightly contracted, she hurried away, with such good will that she arrived exactly on time. As this was not to her liking, she screened herself in the crowd, seeking Barabant. She found him soon, approaching, still immersed in his projected article and betraying his preoccupation by such scowls and sudden gestures that the passers-by would have taken him for demented had not the spectacle been one familiar to their eyes.

"Ah, mon Dieu!" Nicole said to herself, "I thought I'd found a man, and he turns out a philosopher. Also, he does not seem very much occupied in looking for me!"

She stepped forward to meet him, saying mischievously: "Well, have you settled the affairs of the nation? What furor on an empty stomach, Citoyen Eugène!"

Barabant returned to earth quickly, not a little ashamed at the flights of his imagination, and his laugh betrayed his discomfiture as he said:

"It helps one to forget the vacancy."

Nicole leading the way, they hurried through the thronged streets, scenting at every step the inviting odor of soups and stews, until they arrived at a large tavern, or brasserie, around which was a thick crowd struggling for admission.

"Have you heard of Santerre?" Nicole said. "A very wise man who has discovered that the seat of popularity lies in the stomach."

"The Romans placed all the affections there."

"Ah, you've had an education," Nicole said, with a new respect. "There's Santerre."

Before the entrance a huge mass of a man, boisterous in his hospitality and his laughter, was distributing enormous hand-shakes.

Nicole saluted him with evident familiarity.

"I have brought you a patriot to dinner, citoyen!"

Santerre winced a bit and grumbled:

"Eh, Nicole, and you have brought yourself along."

"Vive Santerre!" the girl cried, with a laugh. "Citoyen Barabant has just arrived, and the first thing he asked was to see the famous leader of the Faubourg St. Antoine."

"At lunch-time, of course," said Santerre, with a shrug. "Pass in and eat."

Nicole seized Barabant by the hand and entered the restaurant, already crowded with the self-invited guests of the leader's ready hospitality. They found a corner table and settled down to a quiet inspection of the noisy room.

Masons, carters, and laborers preponderated, while a smattering of young lawyers and journalists circulated from table to table, with ready hand-shakes, to take up the conversation or clink a glass in toasts to the dozen subjects most in favor. Above the din of plates and cutlery, cutting the hum of voices, the toasts emerged sharply.

"To the Bonnets Rouges!"

"To the good Sans-Culottes!"

"À bas les Tyrans!"

"Vive la Constitution!"

"Vive Santerre!"

"Long life to our host!"

At times the Carmagnole, at times some popular ballad of the day, would start from a corner, and gathering headway, would gradually run through the noise of the room until, absorbing all other sounds, it ended in a gale. Whereupon there would be a clatter of knives and glass, shouts of "Bravo!" laughter, and more drinking.

Barabant was too susceptible a nature not to respond to the magnetism of such surroundings. His look regained all its ardor of the morning, until Nicole regarded him with a new interest. He had the long, narrow forehead of the period, marked with thoughtfulness and curiosity. The nose was high-bridged, the nostrils were sensitive and dilating with emotion. The gray eyes were shrewd, kind, gay, and noting, with the mobility and charm of the enthusiast, but, in their repose, without that impress of authority and earnestness of purpose which give to the man of imagination the genius of leadership.

"Come, citoyen," Nicole said, at the end of her inspection, "tell me something about yourself. I am filled with curiosity."

"Ma foi, Nicole," Barabant answered, "it's not much. I was at Fontainebleau; I'm now in Paris. I had an uncle who disapproved of my ideas; he showed me the door, I declared his goods confiscate, and here I am, not a bit depressed,—with but one debt," he added as an afterthought.

"Debts are aristocratic; renounce them."

"The trouble is, I can't rid myself of the creditor, though I pay him over and over."

Nicole raised her glance in surprise, but Barabant added, smiling, "It is my stomach, and a persistent creditor he is."

Nicole laughed gaily. "There, touch hands," she cried. "You are the philosopher." Persisting in her inquiry, she continued encouragingly: "You have a father?"

Barabant smiled. "And a mother, too. And now no more questions, Nicole, for I shall refuse them."

She drew back with a little movement of pique, but yielding to her natural moods, she lifted her eyebrows and, with her charming smile, said with frankness:

"Ah, you are legitimate, then. I have only a mother; that is to say, I had. She is dead now. I don't remember her. God rest her soul."

A little movement of superstition passed over her face and she crossed herself. "My father was a sergeant of the line, so they tell me." She threw out the palms of her hands. "Who knows? It might as well be a rag-picker, or a prince, for all the good it does me."

"Diable!" Barabant exclaimed, regarding her more closely. "You don't seem to be cast down."

"Oh, no; it's only this year I've been by myself. I was brought up by my aunt—Aunt Berthe. What a woman!" She shook her head grimly. "When I came in late she beat me,—oh, but solidly, firmly." She grimaced and, with the instinct of acting that is of the people, drew her hand across her shoulder, as though still smarting under the sting. "And do you know how it ended?"

"Well, how?"

"It ended by my taking the cane from her one night and laying it over her. Oh, such a beating! I was striking for old scores. Aïe! aïe! After that, you understand, I couldn't return."

"I understand."

"So I took a room next to Louison."

Barabant raised his eyebrows in question.

"Louison? She's a comrade. You will see her." She stopped. "We are good friends, only I—well—I don't know." Nicole, who conversed abundantly with her shoulders, raised them again. "When you're rich you can choose; but with us, we take what's nearest. We must have some one to gossip with, to weep with, to laugh with, to confide a little in, and so we take what we can get. That's how it is." Suddenly she halted suspiciously. "Are you a patriot?" she asked point-blank.

"You'd have thought so last night." Barabant, remembering the drubbing he had escaped the night before, grinned and nodded. At his description of the café Nicole showed great interest.

"You said that, and escaped with your life from that den of aristocrats!" she exclaimed, in horror, for she had the popular idea that aristocrats were ogres and inhuman monsters. At the first words descriptive of his rescue she cried:

"Dossonville; beyond a doubt, Dossonville!"

"What, do you know him?" said