He was no longer late at his office, and had not, at the end of each month, ten or fifteen francs’ fines to pay.
Every morning, as soon as she was up, Mlle. Lucienne came to knock at his door. “Come, get up!” she cried to him.
And quick he jumped out of bed and dressed, so that he might bid her good-morning before she left.
In the evening, the last mouthful of his dinner was hardly swallowed, before he began copying the documents which he procured from M. Chapelain’s successor.
And often he worked quite late in the night whilst by his side Mlle. Lucienne applied herself to some work of embroidery.
The girl was the cashier of the association; and she administered the common capital with such skillful and such scrupulous economy, that Maxence soon succeeded in paying off his creditors.
“Do you know,” she was saying at the end of December, “that, between us, we have earned over six hundred francs this month?”
On Sundays only, after a week of which not a minute had been lost, they indulged in some little recreation.
If the weather was not too bad, they went out together, dined in some modest restaurant, and finished the day at the theatre.
Having thus a common existence, both young, free, and having their rooms divided only by a narrow passage it was difficult that people should believe in the innocence of their intercourse. The proprietors of the Hotel des Folies believed nothing of the kind; and they were not alone in that opinion.