on which they rested.

"Le temps nous enleve
Notre enchantement."

Suddenly her pride returned to her.

"Let us put an end to this, Monsieur. All your circumlocution and your
fine words are simply an additional insult. The truth is that I am to be
driven out, turned into the street like a servant."

"O Madame! Madame! The situation is painful enough, let us not embitter
it by words. In working out his _modus vivendi_, Monsieur Jenkins parts
from you, but he does it with death in his heart, and the propositions I
am instructed to make to you are a sufficient proof of his feeling for
you. In the first place, as to furniture and clothes, I am authorized to
allow you to take--"

"Enough," said she.

She rushed to the bell:

"I am going out. My hat, my cloak at once,--something, no matter what. I
am in a hurry."

And while her servant went to bring what she required, she added:

"Everything here belongs to Monsieur Jenkins. Let him dispose of it as
he will. I will take nothing from him--do not insist--it is useless."

The man did not insist. His errand being performed, the rest was of
little consequence to him.

Coolly, without excitement, she carefully adjusted her hat in front of
the mirror, the servant attaching the veil and arranging the folds of
the cape over her shoulders; then she looked around for a moment to see
if she had forgotten anything that was of value to her. No, nothing; her
son's letters were in her pocket; she never parted from them.

"Does Madame wish the carriage?"

"No."

And she left the house.

It was about five o'clock. At that moment Bernard Jansoulet was passing
through the iron gateway of the Corps Legislatif, his mother on his arm;
but, painful as was the drama that was being enacted there, this one far
surpassed it in that respect, being more sudden, more unforeseen, devoid
of the slightest solemnity, one of the private domestic dramas which
Paris improvises every hour in the day; and it may be that that gives to
the air we breathe in Paris that vibrating, quivering quality which
excites the nerves. The weather was superb. The streets in those wealthy
quarters, as broad and straight as avenues, shone resplendent in the
light, which was already beginning to fade, enlivened by open windows,
by flower-laden balconies, by glimpses of verdure toward the boulevards,
light and tremulous between the harsh, rigid lines of stone. Madame
Jenkins' hurried steps were bent in that dir