"Their brutal way of speaking of women and love wounded me, and you too,
Maurice. So much the worse! I will be honest; you, who are so refined
and proud, tell me that you did not mean what you said--that you made a
pretence of vice just to please the others. It is not possible that you
are content simply to gratify your appetite and make yourself a slave to
your passions. You ought to have a higher ideal. Your conscience must
reproach you."

Maurice brusquely interrupted this tirade, laughing in advance at what he
was about to say.

"My conscience? Oh, tender and artless Violette; Oh, modest wood-flower!
Conscience, my poor friend, is like a Suede glove, you can wear it
soiled. Adieu! We will talk of this another day, when Mademoiselle Irma
is not waiting for me."

Amedee walked on alone, shivering in the mist, weary and sad, to the Rue
Notre-Dame-des-Champs.

No! it could not be true. There must be another love than that known to
these brutes. There were other women besides the light creatures they
had spoken of. His thoughts reverted to the companion of his childhood,
to the pretty little Maria, and again he sees her sewing near the family
lamp, and talking with him without raising her eyes, while he admires her
beautiful, drooping lashes. He is amazed to think that this delicious
child's presence has never given him the slightest uneasiness; that he
has never thought of any other happiness than that of being near her.
Why should not a love like that he has dreamed of some day spring up in
her own heart? Have they not grown up together? Is he not the only
young man that she knows intimately? What happiness to become her