brought him here, and in what
a state, too! You had only one idea: to give me up to your friend. Well,
Monsieur, you can do as you like--I am not going to oblige you."

Maurice d'Esparvieu replied simply, "Get out of it, you trollop!" And he
made a motion as if to push her out. It pained Arcade to see his
mistress treated so disrespectfully, but he thought he lacked the
necessary authority to interfere with Maurice. Madame des Aubels, who
had lost none of her dignity, fixed young d'Esparvieu with her imperious
gaze, and said:

"Go and get me a carriage."

And so great is the power of woman over a well-bred soul, in a gallant
nation, that the young Frenchman went immediately and told the concierge
to call a taxi. Madame des Aubels, with a studied exhibition of charm in
every movement, took leave of them, throwing Maurice the contemptuous
look that a woman owes to him whom she has deceived. Maurice witnessed
her departure with an outward expression of indifference he was far from
feeling. Then he turned to the angel clad in the flowered pyjamas which
Maurice himself had worn the day of the apparition; and this
circumstance, trifling in itself, added fuel to the anger of the host
who had been thus shamefully deceived.

"Well," he said, "you may pride yourself on being a despicable
individual. You have behaved basely, and all for nothing. If the woman
took your fancy, you had but to tell me. I was tired of her. I had had
enough of her. I would have willingly left her to you."

He spoke thus to hide his pain, for he loved Gilberte more than ever,
and the creature's treachery caused him great suffering. He pursued:

"I was about to ask you to take her off my hands. But you have followed
your lower nature--you have behaved like a sweep."

If at this solemn moment Arcade had but spoken one word from his heart,
Maurice would have burst into tears, and forgiven his friend and his
mistress, and all three would have become content and happy once again.
But Arcade had not been nourished on the milk of human kindness. He had
never suffered, and did not know how to sympathise with suffering. He
replied with frigid wisdom:

"My dear Maurice, that same necessity which orders and constrains the
actions of living beings, produces effects that are often unexpected,
and sometimes absurd. Thus it is that I have been led to displease you.
You would not reproach me if you had a good philosophical understanding
of nature; for you woul