perverting her by his extravagant opinions and his promiscuous
friendships, so that the little devotee who had been confided to his
keeping was now on the high road to every kind of folly. She still went
to mass and partook of the holy communion; but she was each day growing
more and more familiar with wrong-doing. A disaster must surely be at the
end of it all, particularly as he foolishly behaved to her in a rough,
jeering way, which greatly hurt her feelings, and led her to dream of
being loved with gentleness.

When Mathieu entered the house, which displayed eight lofty windows on
each of the stories of its ornate Renaissance facade, he laughed lightly
as he thought: "These folks don't have to wait for a monthly pittance of
three hundred francs, with just thirty sous in hand."

The hall was extremely rich, all bronze and marble. On the right hand
were the dining-room and two drawing-rooms; on the left a billiard-room,
a smoking-room, and a winter garden. On the first floor, in front of the
broad staircase, was Seguin's so-called "cabinet," a vast apartment,
sixteen feet high, forty feet long, and six-and-twenty feet wide, which
occupied all the central part of the house; while the husband's bed and
dressing rooms were on the right, and those of the wife and children on
the left hand. Up above, on the second floor, two complete suites of
rooms were kept in reserve for the time when the children should have
grown up.

A footman, who knew Mathieu, at once took him upstairs to the cabinet and
begged him to wait there, while Monsieur finished dressing. For a moment
the visitor fancied himself alone and glanced round the spacious room,
feeling interested in its adornments, the lofty windows of old stained
glass, the hangings of old Genoese velvet and brocaded silk, the oak