good news, and you both look like tombstones. The Duc de Berry is

dead, is he?--well, so much the better! that's one the less, at any
rate. As for me, I am to be cashier of a newspaper, with a salary of

three thousand francs, and there you are, out of all your anxieties on
my account."

"Is it possible?" cried Agathe.
"Yes; provided you can go security for me in twenty thousand francs;

you need only deposit your shares in the Funds, you will draw the
interest all the same."

The two widows, who for nearly two months had been desperately anxious
to find out what Philippe was about, and how he could be provided for,

were so overjoyed at this prospect that they gave no thought to their
other catastrophes. That evening, the Grecian sages, old Du Bruel,

Claparon, whose health was failing, and the inflexible Desroches were
unanimous; they all advised Madame Bridau to go security for her son.

The new journal, which fortunately was started before the
assassination of the Duc de Berry, just escaped the blow which

Monsieur Decazes then launched at the press. Madame Bridau's shares in
the Funds, representing thirteen hundred francs' interest, were

transferred as security for Philippe, who was then appointed cashier.
That good son at once promised to pay one hundred francs every month

to the two widows, for his board and lodging, and was declared by both
to be the best of sons. Those who had thought ill of him now

congratulated Agathe.
"We were unjust to him," they said.

Poor Joseph, not to be behind his brother in generosity, resolved to
pay for his own support, and succeeded.

CHAPTER IV
Three months later, the colonel, who ate and drank enough for four

men, finding fault with the food and compelling the poor widows, on
the score of his payments, to spend much money on their table, had not

yet paid down a single penny. His mother and Madame Descoings were
unwilling, out of delicacy, to remind him of his promise. The year

went by without one of those coins which Leon Gozlan so vigorously
called "tigers with five claws" finding its way from Philippe's pocket

to the household purse. It is true that the colonel quieted his
conscience on this score by seldom dining at home.

"Well, he is happy," said his mother; "he is easy in mind; he has a
place."

Through the influence of a feuilleton, edited by Vernou, a friend of
Bixiou, Finot, and Giroudeau, Mariette made her appearance, not at the

Panorama-Dramatique but at the Porte-Saint-Martin, where she triumphed
beside the famous Begrand. Among the directors of the theatre was a

rich and luxurious general officer, in love with an actress, for whose
sake he had made himself an impresario. In Paris, we frequently meet

with men so fascinated with actresses, singers, or ballet-dancers,
that they are willing to become directors of a theatre out of love.

This officer knew Philippe and Giroudeau. Mariette's first appearance,
heralded already by Finot's journal and also by Philippe's, was

promptly arranged by the three officers; for there seems to be
solidarity among the passions in a matter of folly.

The mischievous Bixiou was not long in revealing to his grandmother
and the devoted Agathe that Philippe, the cashier, the hero of heroes,

was in love with Mariette, the celebrated ballet-dancer at the Porte-
Saint-Martin. The news was a thunder-clap to the two widows; Agathe's

religious principles taught her to think that all women on the stage
were brands in the burning; moreover, she thought, and so did Madame

Descoings, that women of that kind dined off gold, drank pearls, and
wasted fortunes.

"Now do you suppose," said Joseph to his mother, "that my brother is
such a fool as to spend his money on Mariette? Such women only ruin

rich men."
"They talk of engaging Mariette at the Opera," said Bixiou. "Don't be

worried, Madame Bridau; the diplomatic body often comes to the Porte-
Saint-Martin, and that handsome girl won't stay long with your son. I

did hear that an ambassador was madly in love with her. By the bye,
another piece of news! Old Claparon is dead, and his son, who has

become a banker, has ordered the cheapest kind of funeral for him.
That fellow has no education; they wouldn't behave like that in

China."
Philippe, prompted by mercenarymotives, proposed to Mariette that she

should marry him; but she, knowing herself on the eve of an engagement
at the Grand Opera, refused the offer, either because she guessed the

colonel's motive, or because she saw how important her independence
would be to her future fortune. For the remainder of this year,

Philippe never came more than twice a month to see his mother. Where
was he? Either at his office, or the theatre, or with Mariette. No

light whatever as to his conduct reached the household of the rue
Mazarin. Giroudeau, Finot, Bixiou, Vernou, Lousteau, saw him leading a

life of pleasure. Philippe shared the gay amusements of Tullia, a
leading singer at the Opera, of Florentine, who took Mariette's place

at the Porte-Saint-Martin, of Florine and Matifat, Coralie and
Camusot. After four o'clock, when he left his office, until midnight,

he amused himself; some party of pleasure had usually been arranged
the night before,--a good dinner, a card-party, a supper by some one

or other of the set. Philippe was in his element.
This carnival, which lasted eighteen months, was not altogether

without its troubles. The beautiful Mariette no sooner appeared at the
Opera, in January, 1821, than she captured one of the most

distinguished dukes of the court of Louis XVIII. Philippe tried to
make head against the peer, and by the month of April he was compelled

by his passion, notwithstanding some luck at cards, to dip into the
funds of which he was cashier. By May he had taken eleven hundred

francs. In that fatal month Mariette started for London, to see what
could be done with the lords while the temporary opera house in the

Hotel Choiseul, rue Lepelletier, was being prepared. The luckless
Philippe had ended, as often happens, in loving Mariette

notwithstanding her flagrant infidelities; she herself had never
thought him anything but a dull-minded, brutal soldier, the first rung

of a ladder on which she had never intended to remain long. So,
foreseeing the time when Philippe would have spent all his money, she

captured other journalistic support which released her from the
necessity of depending on him; nevertheless, she did feel the peculiar

gratitude that class of women acknowledge towards the first man who
smooths their way, as it were, among the difficulties and horrors of a

theatrical career.
Forced to let his terrible mistress go to London without him, Philippe

went into winter quarters, as he called it,--that is, he returned to
his attic room in his mother's appartement. He made some gloomy

reflections as he went to bed that night, and when he got up again. He
was conscious within himself of the inability to live otherwise than

as he had been living the last year. The luxury that surrounded
Mariette, the dinners, the suppers, the evenings in the side-scenes,

the animation of wits and journalists, the sort of racket that went on
around him, the delights that tickled both his senses and his vanity,

--such a life, found only in Paris, and offering daily the charm of
some new thing, was now more than habit,--it had become to Philippe as

much a necessity as his tobacco or his brandy. He saw plainly that he
could not live without these continual enjoyments. The idea of suicide

came into his head; not on account of the deficit which must soon be
discovered in his accounts, but because he could no longer live with

Mariette in the atmosphere of pleasure in which he had disported
himself for over a year. Full of these gloomy thoughts, he entered for

the first time his brother's painting-room, where he found the painter
in a blue blouse, copying a picture for a dealer.

"So that's how pictures are made," said Philippe, by way of opening
the conversation.