"'I looked at her. A glance told me all about her life. Here was a
girl condemned by misfortune to toil, a girl who came of honest farmer
folk, for she had still a freckle or two that told of country birth.
There was an indefinable atmosphere of goodness about her; I felt as
if I were breathing sincerity and frank innocence. It was refreshing
to my lungs. Poor innocent child, she had faith in something; there
was a crucifix and a sprig or two of green box above her poor little
painted wooden bedstead; I felt touched, or somewhat inclined that
way. I felt ready to offer to charge no more than twelve per cent, and
so give something towards establishing her in a good way of business.

"'"But maybe she has a little youngster of a cousin," I said to
myself, "who would raise money on her signature and sponge on the poor
girl."

"'So I went away, keeping my generous impulses well under control;
for I have frequently had occasion to observe that when benevolence
does no harm to him who gives it, it is the ruin of him who takes.
When you came in I was thinking that Fanny Malvaut would make a nice
little wife; I was thinking of the contrast between her pure, lonely
life and the life of the Countess--she has sunk as low as a bill of
exchange already, she will sink to the lowest depths of degradation
before she has done!'--I scrutinized him during the deep silence that
followed, but in a moment he spoke again. 'Well,' he said, 'do you
think that it is nothing to have this power of insight into the
deepest recesses of the human heart, to embrace so many lives, to see
the naked truth underlying it all? There are no two dramas alike:
there are hideous sores, deadly chagrins, love scenes, misery that
soon will lie under the ripples of the Seine, young men's joys that
lead to the scaffold, the laughter of despair, and sumptuous banquets.