etire herself, when the thought
of her determination to act stealthily restrained her. She instantly
realized her imprudence, and, mastering herself with a great effort,
she murmured: "Madame de Fondege is too kind! How can I ever express my
gratitude?"

Madame de Fondege must have heard this, for at the same moment she
entered the room. She was short, and very stout--a faded blonde, with
her complexion spoilt by a multitude of freckles. She had very large
hands, broad, thick feet, and a shrill voice; and the vulgarity of her
appearance was all the more noticeable on account of her pretensions to
elegance. For although her father had been a wood-merchant, she
boasted of her exalted birth, and endeavored to impress people with
the magnificence of her style of living, though her fortune was
problematical, and her household conducted in the most frugal style.
Her attire suggested a continual conflict between elegance and
economy--between real poverty and feigned prodigality. She wore
a corsage and overskirt of black satin; but the upper part of the
underskirt, which was not visible, was made of lute-string costing
thirty sous a yard, and her laces were Chantilly only in appearance.
Still, her love of finery had never carried her so far as shop-lifting,
or induced her to part with her honor for gewgaws--irregularities which
are so common nowadays, even among wives and mothers of families, that
people are no longer astonished to hear of them.

No--Madame de Fondege was a faithful wife, in the strict and legal sense
of the word. But how she revenged herself! She was "virtuous;" but so
dangerously virtuous that one might have supposed she was so against her
will, and that she bitterly regretted it. She ruled her husband with a
rod of iron. And he who was so terrible in appearance, he who twirled
his ferocious mustaches in such a threatening manner, he who swore
horribly enough to make an old hussar blush, became more submissive
than a child, and more timid than a lamb when he was beside his wife.
He trembled when she turned her pale blue eyes upon him in a certain
fashion. And woe to him if he ventured to rebel. She suppressed his
pocket-money, and during these penitential seasons he was reduced to the
necessity of asking his friends to lend him twenty-franc pieces, which
he generally forgot to return.

Madame de Fondege was, as a rule, most imperious, envious, and spiteful
in disposition; but on coming to the Hotel de Chal