ke peace. "Come now, M. le baron,
between ourselves he has only done like everyone else. I am quite sure
you don't know many husbands who are faithful to their wives, do you
now?" And he added in a sly, good-natured way: "I bet you, yourself,
have played your little games; you can't say conscientiously that you
haven't, I know. Why, of course you have! And who knows but what you
have made the acquaintance of some little maid just like Rosalie. I tell
you every man is the same. And your escapades didn't make your wife
unhappy, or lessen your affection for her; did they?"

The baron stood still in confusion. It was true that he had done the
same himself, and not only once or twice, but as often as he had got the
chance; his wife's presence in the house had never made any difference,
when the servants were pretty. And was he a villain because of that?
Then why should he judge Julien's conduct so severely when he had never
thought that any fault could be found with his own?

Though her tears were hardly dried, the idea of her husband's pranks
brought a slight smile to the baroness's lip, for she was one of those
good-natured, tender-hearted, sentimental women to whom love adventures
are an essential part of existence.

Jeanne lay back exhausted, thinking, with open unseeing eyes, of all
this painful episode. The expression that had wounded her most in
Rosalie's confession was: "I never said anything about it because I
thought he was nice." She, his wife, had also thought him "nice," and
that was the sole reason why she had united herself to him for life, had
given up every other hope, every other project to join her destiny to
his. She had plunged into marriage, into this pit from which there was
no escape, into all this misery, this grief, this despair, simply
because, like Rosalie, she had thought him "nice."

The door was flung violently open and Julien came in, looking perfectly
wild with rage. He had seen Rosalie moaning on the landing, and guessing
that she had been forced to speak, he had come to see what was going on;
but at the sight of the priest he was taken thoroughly aback.

"What is it? What is the matter?" he asked, in a voice which trembled
in spite of his efforts to make it sound calm.

The baron, who had been so violent just before, dared say nothing after
the cure's argument, in case his son-in-law should quote his own
example; the baroness only wept more bitterly than before, and Jeanne
raised hers