She sat down.  There was no anger in her face, no embarrassment; she looked from Camusot to Lucien.  The two men avoided each other’s eyes.

“I will believe nothing that you do not wish me to believe,” said Camusot.  “Don’t play with me, Coralie; I was wrong——­”

“I am either a shameless baggage that has taken a sudden fancy; or a poor, unhappy girl who feels what love really is for the first time, the love that all women long for.  And whichever way it is, you must leave me or take me as I am,” she said, with a queenly gesture that crushed Camusot.

“Is it really true?” he asked, seeing from their faces that this was no jest, yet begging to be deceived.

“I love mademoiselle,” Lucien faltered out.

At that word, Coralie sprang to her poet and held him tightly to her; then, with her arms still about him, she turned to the silk-mercer, as if to bid him see the beautiful picture made by two young lovers.

“Poor Musot, take all that you gave to me back again; I do not want to keep anything of yours; for I love this boy here madly, not for his intellect, but for his beauty.  I would rather starve with him than have millions with you.”

Camusot sank into a low chair, hid his face in his hands, and said not a word.

“Would you like us to go away?” she asked.  There was a note of ferocity in her voice which no words can describe.

Cold chills ran down Lucien’s spine; he beheld himself burdened with a woman, an actress, and a household.

“Stay here, Coralie; keep it all,” the old tradesman said at last, in a faint, unsteady voice that came from his heart; “I don’t want anything back.  There is the worth of sixty thousand francs here in the furniture; but I could not bear to think of my Coralie in want.  And yet, it will not be long before you come to want.  However great this gentleman’s talent may be, he can’t afford to keep you.  We old fellows must expect this sort of thing.  Coralie, let me come and see you sometimes; I may be of use to you.  And—­I confess it; I cannot live without you.”

The poor man’s gentleness, stripped as he was of his happiness just as happiness had reached its height, touched Lucien deeply.  Coralie was quite unsoftened by it.

“Come as often as you wish, poor Musot,” she said; “I shall like you all the better when I don’t pretend to love you.”

Camusot seemed to be resigned to his fate so long as he was not driven out of the earthly paradise, in which his life could not have been all joy; he trusted to the chances of life in Paris and to the temptations that would beset Lucien’s path; he would wait a while, and all that had been his should be his again.  Sooner or later, thought the wily tradesman, this handsome young fellow would be unfaithful; he would keep a watch on him; and the better to do this and use his opportunity with Coralie, he would be their friend.  The persistent passion that could consent to such humiliation terrified Lucien.  Camusot’s proposal of a dinner at Very’s in the Palais Royal was accepted.