head-protectors. This, it is true, was a fancy of Madame Homais'; her
husband was inwardly afflicted at it. Fearing the possible consequences
of such compression to the intellectual organs. He even went so far as
to say to her, "Do you want to make Caribs or Botocudos of them?"

Charles, however, had several times tried to interrupt the conversation.
"I should like to speak to you," he had whispered in the clerk's ear,
who went upstairs in front of him.

"Can he suspect anything?" Leon asked himself. His heart beat, and he
racked his brain with surmises.

At last, Charles, having shut the door, asked him to see himself
what would be the price at Rouen of a fine daguerreotypes. It was a
sentimental surprise he intended for his wife, a delicate attention--his
portrait in a frock-coat. But he wanted first to know "how much it would
be." The inquiries would not put Monsieur Leon out, since he went to
town almost every week.

Why? Monsieur Homais suspected some "young man's affair" at the bottom
of it, an intrigue. But he was mistaken. Leon was after no love-making.
He was sadder than ever, as Madame Lefrancois saw from the amount of
food he left on his plate. To find out more about it she questioned
the tax-collector. Binet answered roughly that he "wasn't paid by the
police."

All the same, his companion seemed very strange to him, for Leon often
threw himself back in his chair, and stretching out his arms. Complained
vaguely of life.