to drag this tortoise out of her shell; it must be broken. The evening
before, in our last quite friendly discussion, the Countess had
exclaimed:

"'Lucretia's dagger wrote in letters of blood the watchword of
woman's charter: _Liberty!_'

"From that moment the Count left me free to act.

"'I have been paid a hundred francs for the flowers and caps I made
this week!' Honorine exclaimed gleefully one Saturday evening when I
went to visit her in the little sitting-room on the ground floor,
which the unavowed proprietor had had regilt.

"It was ten o'clock. The twilight of July and a glorious moon lent us
their misty light. Gusts of mingled perfumes soothed the soul; the
Countess was clinking in her hand the five gold pieces given to her by
a supposititious dealer in fashionable frippery, another of Octave's
accomplices found for him by a judge, M. Popinot.

"'I earn my living by amusing myself,' said she; 'I am free, when
men, armed with their laws, have tried to make us slaves. Oh, I have
transports of pride every Saturday! In short, I like M. Gaudissart's
gold pieces as much as Lord Byron, your double, liked Mr. Murray's.'

"'This is not becoming in a woman,' said I.

"'Pooh! Am I a woman? I am a boy gifted with a soft soul, that is
all; a boy whom no woman can torture----'