hand on that heart which you invoke so often,
do you think that I am a very tempting wife for an honest man?
Consider: of all these young men who ask as a favor to be allowed to
come here, what one has ever thought of asking for my hand? Never a
single one. De Gery no more than the rest. I charm, but I terrify. That
is easily understood. What can anyone expect of a girl brought up as I
was, with no mother or family, tossed in a heap with my father's models
and mistresses? Such mistresses, great God! And Jenkins for my only
protector. Oh! when I think of it! When I think of it!"

And, with the memory of that already distant episode, thoughts came to
her mind which inflamed her wrath. "Oh! yes, I am a child of chance,
and this adventurer is just the husband for me."[2]

[2] Je suis une fille _d'aventure_, et cet _aventurier_ est bien
le mari qu'il me faut.

"At least you will wait until he's a widower," retorted Jenkins
tranquilly. "And in that case you may have to wait a long while, for
his Levantine looks to be in excellent health."

Felicia Ruys became livid.

"He is married?"

"Married, why, to be sure, and father of a lot of children. The whole
outfit landed here two days ago."

She stood for a moment, speechless, her cheeks quivering.

In front of her the Nabob's broad visage, in shining clay, with its
flat nose, its sensual good-humored mouth, seemed to cry aloud in its
fidelity to life. She gazed at it a moment, then stepped toward it, and
with a gesture of disgust overturned the high, wooden stand and the
gleaming, greasy block itself, which fell to the floor a shapeless mass
of mud.

VII.

JANSOULET AT HOME.

Married he had been for twelve years, but had never mentioned the fact
to any one of his Parisian acquaintances, by virtue of an acquired
Oriental habit, the habit that Oriental peoples have of maintaining
silence concerning their female relations. Suddenly it was learned that
Madame was coming, that apartments must be made ready for her, her
children and her women. The Nabob hired the whole second floor of the
house on Place Vendome, the previous tenant being sacrificed to Nabob
prices. The stables were increased in size, the staff of servants was
doubled; and then, one day, coachmen and carriages went to the Lyon
station to fetch Madame, who arrived with a retinue of negresses,
little negroes and gazelles, completely filling a long train that had
been heated expressly fo