her with his clothes quite dry, she felt a sort of vague gratitude, a
pleasure in knowing that he had found a shelter-place where he could sit
with his feet in front of a fire. Later on, she was quite touched when
he read her some words from a scrap of soiled newspaper wrapped round
a slice of conger-eel. By degrees, indeed, she began to think, though
without admitting it, that Florent could not really be a bad sort of
fellow. She felt respect for his knowledge, mingled with an increasing
curiosity to see more of him and learn something of his life. Then, all
at once, she found an excuse for gratifying this inquisitiveness. She
would use it as a means of vengeance. It would be fine fun to make
friends with Florent and embroil him with that great fat Lisa.

"Does your good friend Florent ever speak to you about me?" she asked
Muche one morning as she was dressing him.

"Oh, no," replied the boy. "We enjoy ourselves."

"Well, you can tell him that I've quite forgiven him, and that I'm much
obliged to him for having taught you to read."

Thenceforward the child was entrusted with some message every day. He
went backwards and forwards from his mother to the inspector, and from
the inspector to his mother, charged with kindly words and questions and
answers, which he repeated mechanically without knowing their meaning.
He might, indeed, have been safely trusted with the most compromising
communications. However, the beautiful Norman felt afraid of appearing
timid, and so one day she herself went to the inspector's office and sat
down on the second chair, while Muche was having his writing lesson.
She proved very suave and complimentary, and Florent was by far the more
embarrassed of the two. They only spoke of the lad; and when Florent