ext morning she saw Wenceslas go out at nine o'clock, and was quite
reassured.

"Now he is at work again," said she to herself, as she proceeded to
dress her boy. "I see he is quite in the vein! Well, well, if we
cannot have the glory of Michael Angelo, we may have that of Benvenuto
Cellini!"

Lulled by her own hopes, Hortense believed in a happy future; and she
was chattering to her son of twenty months in the language of
onomatopoeia that amuses babes when, at about eleven o'clock, the
cook, who had not seen Wenceslas go out, showed in Stidmann.

"I beg pardon, madame," said he. "Is Wenceslas gone out already?"

"He is at the studio."

"I came to talk over the work with him."

"I will send for him," said Hortense, offering Stidmann a chair.

Thanking Heaven for this piece of luck, Hortense was glad to detain
Stidmann to ask some questions about the evening before. Stidmann
bowed in acknowledgment of her kindness. The Countess Steinbock rang;
the cook appeared, and was desired to go at once and fetch her master
from the studio.

"You had an amusing dinner last night?" said Hortense. "Wenceslas did
not come in till past one in the morning."

"Amusing? not exactly," replied the artist, who had intended to
fascinate Madame Marneffe. "Society is not very amusing unless one is
interested in it. That little Madame Marneffe is clever, but a great
flirt."

"And what did Wenceslas think of her?" asked poor Hortense, trying to
keep calm. "He said nothing about her to me."

"I will only say one thing," said Stidmann, "and that is, that I think
her a very dangerous woman."

Hortense turned as pale as a woman after childbirth.

"So--it was at--at Madame Marneffe's that you dined--and not--not with
Chanor?" said she, "yesterday--and Wenceslas--and he----"

Stidmann, without knowing what mischief he had done, saw that he had
blundered.

The Countess did not finish her sentence; she simply fainted away. The
artist rang, and the maid came in. When Louise tried to get her
mistress into her bedroom, a serious nervous attack came on, with
violent hysterics. Stidmann, like any man who by an involuntary
indiscretion has overthrown the structure built on a husband's lie to
his wife, could not conceive that his words should produce such an
effect; he supposed that the Countess was in such delicate health that
the slightest contradiction was mischievous.

The cook presently returned to say, unfortunately in loud tones, tha