into the adjoining chamber. In a few minutes Monnier returned, shutting
the door behind him, and drawing the portiere close.

"You will excuse me, Citizen, and my poor wife--wife she is to me and to
all who visit here, though the law says she is not."

"I respect Madame the more for her dislike to myself," said Lebeau, with
a somewhat melancholy smile.

"Not dislike to you personally, Citizen, but dislike to the business
which she connects with your visits, and she is more than usually
agitated on that subject this evening, because, just before you came,
another visitor had produced a great effect on her feelings--poor dear
Heloise!"

"Indeed! how?"

"Well, I was employed in the winter in redecorating the salon, and
boudoir, of Madame de Vandemar; her son, M. Raoul, took great interest in
superintending the details. He would sometimes talk to me very civilly,
not only on my work, but on other matters. It seems that Madame now
wants something done to the _salle-a-manger_, and asked old Gerard--my
late master, you know--to send me. Of course he said that was
impossible--for, though I was satisfied with my own wages, I had induced
his other men to strike, and was one of the ringleaders in the recent
strike of artisans in general--a dangerous man, and he would have nothing
more to do with me. So M. Raoul came to see and talk to me--scarce gone
before you rang at the bell--you might have almost met him on the
stairs."