that the little man had intended to wreck every hope of his dying
that his wife might have conceived.

This short scene made a considerable change in the writer's secret
scheming. As he smoked a second cigar, he seriously reviewed the
position.

His life with Madame de la Baudraye had hitherto cost him quite as much
as it had cost her. To use the language of business, the two sides
of the account balanced, and they could, if necessary, cry quits.
Considering how small his income was, and how hardly he earned it,
Lousteau regarded himself, morally speaking, as the creditor. It was, no
doubt, a favorable moment for throwing the woman over. Tired at the end
of three years of playing a comedy which never can become a habit,
he was perpetually concealing his weariness; and this fellow, who was
accustomed to disguise none of his feelings, compelled himself to wear
a smile at home like that of a debtor in the presence of his creditor.
This compulsion was every day more intolerable.

Hitherto the immense advantages he foresaw in the future had given him
strength; but when he saw Monsieur de la Baudraye embark for the United
States, as briskly as if it were to go down to Rouen in a steamboat, he
ceased to believe in the future.

He went in from the garden to the pretty drawing-room, where Dinah had
just taken leave of her husband.

"Etienne," said Madame de la Baudraye, "do you know what my lord and
master has proposed to me? In the event of my wishing to return to live
at Anzy during his absence, he has left his orders, and he hopes that my
mother's good advice will weigh with me, and that I shall go back there
with my children."

"It is very good advice," replied Lousteau drily, knowing the passionate
disclaimer that Dinah expected, and indeed begged for with her eyes.

The tone, the words, the cold look, all hit the hapless woman so hard,
who lived only in her love, that two large tears trickled slowly down
her cheeks, while she did not speak a word, and Lousteau only saw them
when she took out her handkerchief to wipe away these two beads of
anguish.

"What is it, Didine?" he asked, touched to the heart by this excessive
sensibility.

"Just as I was priding myself on having won our freedom," said she--"at
the cost of my fortune--by selling--what is most precious to a mother's
heart--selling my children!--for he is to have them from the age of
six--and I cannot see them without going to Sancerre!--and that is
tort