"You know all about this neighbourhood. Can't you recommend some quiet lodgings in a retired street hereabouts?"
"What! You are thinking of deserting the Faubourg St. Germain for the Batignolles? How delightful!"
"Nonsense! Listen to me. Of course, living in my mother's house I cannot receive my friends indiscriminately,—you understand."
"Very well."
"So I have had some rooms elsewhere, but the house has changed hands, and the new owner is such a strictly moral man that he has warned me that I have got to leave when my month is up,—that is, day after to-morrow."
"All the better. It is a very fortunate thing, I think. You're about to marry, so bid farewell to your amours."
"Olivier, you have heard my ideas on the subject. Your uncle approves them. I am resolved to change none of my bachelor habits in advance, and if I should abandon the idea of marriage altogether, think of my desolate situation, homeless and loveless! No, no, I am much too cautious and far-sighted not to—to preserve a pear to quench my thirst."
"You're a man of infinite precautions, certainly. Very well, as I go and come I'll look at the notices of rooms to rent in the windows."
"Two little rooms, with a private hall, is all I need. I'll look myself when we leave Madame Herbaut's, for time presses. Day after to-morrow is the fatal day. Say, Olivier, wouldn't it be strange if I should discover what I need right here? Do you remember the lines:
| "'What if in this same quiet spot |
| I both sweet love and friendship true should find?' |