I did not even ask him for it." "Who is he ?" "Your chief clerk." "Dutocq! People are always punished through their kindnesses! But," she added, "he is only a dog who wants a bone." "Do you know what the other side offer me, poor devil of a general-secretary ?" "What ?" "I owe thirty-thousand and odd miserable francs,--you will despise me because it isn't more, but here, I grant you, I am significant.

Well, Baudoyer's uncle has bought up my debts, and is, doubtless, ready to give me a receipt for them if Baudoyer is appointed." "But all that is monstrous." "Not at all; it is monarchical and religious, for the Grand Almoner is concerned in it.

Baudoyer himself must appoint Colleville in return for ecclesiastical assistance." "What shall you do ?" "What will you bid me do ?" he said, with charming grace, holding out his hand.
Celestine no longer thought him ugly, nor old, nor white and chilling as a hoar-frost, nor indeed anything that was odious and offensive, but she did not give him her hand.

At night, in her salon, she would have let him take it a hundred times, but here, alone and in the morning, the action seemed too like a promise that might lead her far.
"And they say that statesmen have no hearts!" she cried enthusiastically, trying to hide the harshness of her refusal under the grace of her words.

"The thought used to terrify me," she added, assuming an innocent, ingenuous air.
"What a calumny!" cried des Lupeaulx.