to him?" asked la Peyrade.

"It happened to him that this serpent knows every language in Europe;
she is witty and clever to the tips of her fingers, but more manoeuvring
than either; so, being, as it appears, in close relations to the
police, she gave the government a lot of papers the Italian left about
carelessly, on which they expelled him from France."

"Well, after his departure, Madame Komorn--"

"Since then, she has had a good many adventures and upset several
fortunes, and I thought she had left Paris. For the last two months
she was nowhere to be seen, but three days ago she reappeared, more
brilliant than ever. My advice to monsieur is not to trust himself
in that direction; and yet, monsieur looks to me a Southerner, and
Southerners have passions; perhaps what I have told him will only serve
to spur them up. However, being warned, there's not so much danger, and
she is a most fascinating creature--oh! very fascinating. She used to
love me very much, though we parted such ill-friends; and just now,
seeing me here, she came over and asked my address, and said she should
come and see me."

"Well, madame, I'll think about it," said la Peyrade, rising and bowing
to her.

The bow was returned with extreme coldness; his abrupt departure did not
show him to be a man of _serious_ intentions.

It might be supposed from the lively manner in which la Peyrade made
these inquiries that his cure though sudden was complete; but this
surface of indifference and cool self-possession was only the stillness
of the atmosphere that precedes a storm. On leaving Madame Louchard, la
Peyrade flung himself into a street-cab and there gave way to a passion
of tears like that Madame Colleville had witnessed on the day he
believed that Cerizet had got the better of him in the sale of the
house.

What was his position now? The investment of the Thuilliers, prepared
with so much care, all useless; Flavie well avenged for the odious
comedy he had played with her; his affairs in a worse state than they
were when Cerizet and Dutocq had sent him, like a devouring wolf, into
the sheepfold from which he had allowed the stupid sheep to drive him;
his heart full of revengeful projects against the woman who had so
easily got the better of what he thought his cleverness; and the memory,
still vivid, of the seductions to which he had succumbed,--such were
the thoughts and emotions of his sleepless night, sleepless except for
moments shaken b