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366 This was my ambition. Many times I had built marvelous futures on an old man's fancy, and now this paradise that I had dreamed of was before me, smiling, calling me. By an inexplicable irony of life, by an imbecile contradiction, the cause of which I cannot understand, I squarely refused this good fortune which I had wished for so many times, and which at last presented itself.

"An old rake! Oh! no! Besides, men are too disgusting to me,—the old, the young, all of them."

For a few seconds Mme. Paulhat-Durand stood in amazement. She had not expected this sally. Resuming her severe and dignified air, which placed so great a distance between the correct bourgeoise that she wished to be and the bohemian girl that I am, she said:

"Ah! Mademoiselle, what do you think, then? What do you take me for? What are you imagining?"

"I imagine nothing. Only I repeat that I have had enough of men."

"Do you really know of whom you are speaking? This gentleman, Mademoiselle, is a very respectable man. He is a member of the Society of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. He has been a royalist deputy."

I burst out laughing.

"Yes, yes, of course. I know your