When his wife had betrayed him, and his wife and child had left him, he had said, "Moi je suis philosophe!" but he was a man of wealth in those days, and money soothes hurts of that kind in rare degree.

Would he still say, whatever was yet to come, that he was a philosopher?
"Well, I've done what I thought would help you, and I can't say more than that," Virginie remarked with a sigh, and there was despondency in her eyes.

Her face became flushed, her bosom showed agitation; she looked at him as she had done in Maitre Fille's office, and a wave of feeling passed over him now, as it did then, and he remembered, in response to her look, the thrill of his fingers in her palm.

His face now flushed also, and he had an impulse to ask her to sit down beside him.

He put it away from him, however, for the present, at any rate-who could tell what to-morrow might bring forth!--and then he held out his hand to her.