etting into bed, Theodose said to himself:--

"The wife is on my side; the husband can't endure me; they are now
quarrelling; and I shall get the better of it, for she does what she
likes with that man."

The lawyer was mistaken in one thing: there was no dispute whatever, and
Colleville was sleeping peacefully beside his dear little Flavie, while
she was saying to herself:--

"Certainly Theodose must be a superior man."

Many men, like la Peyrade, derive their superiority from the audacity,
or the difficulty, of an enterprise; the strength they display increases
their muscular power, and they spend it freely. Then when success is
won, or defeat is met, the public is astonished to find how small,
exhausted, and puny those men really are. After casting into the minds
of the two persons on whom Celeste's fate chiefly depended, an interest
and curiosity that were almost feverish, Theodose pretended to be a very
busy man; for five or six days he was out of the house from morning
till night, in order not to meet Flavie until the time when her interest
should increase to the point of overstepping conventionality, and also
in order to force the handsome Thuillier to come and fetch him.

The following Sunday he felt certain he should find Madame Colleville
at church; he was not mistaken, for they came out, each of them, at the
same moment, and met at the corner of the rue des Deux-Eglises. Theodose
offered his arm, which Flavie accepted, leaving her daughter to walk in
front with her brother Anatole. This youngest child, then about twelve
years old, being destined for the seminary, was now at the Barniol
institute, where he obtained an elementary education; Barniol, the
son-in-law of the Phellions, was naturally making the tuition fees
light, with a view to the hoped-for alliance between Felix and Celeste.

"Have you done me the honor and favor of thinking over what I said to
you so badly the other day?" asked the lawyer, in a caressing tone,
pressing the lady's arm to his heart with a movement both soft and
strong; for he seemed to wish to restrain himself and appear respectful,
in spite of his evident eagerness. "Do not misunderstand my intentions,"
he continued, after receiving from Madame Colleville one of those looks
which women trained to the management of passion know how to give,--a
look that, by mere expression, can convey both severe rebuke and secret
community of sentiment. "I love you as we love a noble nature