always on my guard with a woman. There is this creature, for instance;
I am madly in love with her; but this is not her furniture; no, it
belongs to me. The lease is taken out in my name.'

"You know Maxime! He thought the coach-builder uncommonly green.
Croizeau might pay all three bills, and get nothing for a long while;
for Maxime felt more infatuated with Antonia than ever."

"I can well believe it," said La Palferine. "She is the _bella
Imperia_ of our day."

"With her rough skin!" exclaimed Malaga; "so rough, that she ruins
herself in bran baths!"

"Croizeau spoke with a coach-builder's admiration of the sumptuous
furniture provided by the amorous Denisart as a setting for his fair
one, describing it all in detail with diabolical complacency for
Antonia's benefit," continued Desroches. "The ebony chests inlaid with
mother-of-pearl and gold wire, the Brussels carpets, a mediaeval
bedstead worth three thousand francs, a Boule clock, candelabra in the
four corners of the dining-room, silk curtains, on which Chinese
patience had wrought pictures of birds, and hangings over the doors,
worth more than the portress that opened them.

"'And that is what _you_ ought to have, my pretty lady.--And that is
what I should like to offer you,' he would conclude. 'I am quite aware
that you scarcely care a bit about me; but, at my age, we cannot
expect too much. Judge how much I love you; I have lent you a thousand
francs. I must confess that, in all my born days, I have not lent
anybody _that_ much----'