"True?" said Dard, "why, I have seen Rose doing it for the old woman's
breakfast: it was Rose invented the move. A girl of nineteen beginning
already to deceive the world! But they are all tarred with the same
stick. Down with the aristocrats!"

"Dard," said Riviere, "you are a brute."

"Me, citizen?" inquired Dard with every appearance of genuine surprise.

Edouard Riviere rose from his seat in great excitement. Dard's abuse of
the family he was lately so bitter against had turned him right round.
He pitied the very baroness herself, and forgave her declining his
visit.

"Be silent," said he, "for shame! There is such a thing as noble
poverty; and you have described it. I might have disdained these people
in their prosperity, but I revere them in their affliction. And I'll
tell you what, don't you ever dare to speak slightly of them again in my
presence, or"--

He did not conclude his threat, for just then he observed that a
strapping girl, with a basket at her feet, was standing against the
corner of the Auberge, in a mighty careless attitude, but doing nothing,
so most likely listening with all her ears and soul. Dard, however, did
not see her, his back being turned to her as he sat; so he replied at
his ease,--

"I consent," said he very coolly: "that is your affair; but permit me,"
and here he clenched his teeth at remembrance of his wrongs, "to say