been telling us is enough to make one shudder. It is time now for you
to settle down. You belong to a respectable family, you received a good
education, and it is really not fitting that you should go wandering
about the highways like a vagrant. At your age childishness is no longer
excusable. You have been foolish; well, all that will be forgotten
and forgiven. You will take your place again among those of your own
class--the class of respectable folks--and live in future like other
people."

Florent listened in astonishment, quite unable to say a word. Lisa
was, doubtless, right. She looked so healthy, so serene, that it was
impossible to imagine that she desired anything but what was proper. It
was he, with his fleshless body and dark, equivocal-looking countenance,
who must be in the wrong, and indulging in unrighteous dreams. He could,
indeed, no longer understand why he had hitherto resisted.

Lisa, however, continued to talk to him with an abundant flow of words,
as though he were a little boy found in fault and threatened with the
police. She assumed, indeed, a most maternal manner, and plied him with
the most convincing reasons. And at last, as a final argument, she said:

"Do it for us, Florent. We occupy a fair position in the neighbourhood
which obliges us to use a certain amount of circumspection; and, to tell
you the truth, between ourselves, I'm afraid that people will begin
to talk. This inspectorship will set everything right; you will be
somebody; you will even be an honour to us."

Her manner had become caressingly persuasive, and Florent was penetrated
by all the surrounding plenteousness, all the aroma filling the kitchen,
where he fed, as it were, on the nourishment floating in the atmosphere.