to?"

He replied, in a low tone: "I went to the telegraph office to send off a
message."

Madame de Marelle approached them. "You will see me home, Pretty-boy?"
said she. "You know I only came such a distance to dinner on that
condition." And turning to Madeleine, she added: "You are not jealous?"

Madame Du Roy answered slowly: "Not over much."

The guests were taking their leave. Madame Laroche-Mathieu looked like a
housemaid from the country. She was the daughter of a notary, and had
been married to the deputy when he was only a barrister of small
standing. Madame Rissolin, old and stuck-up, gave one the idea of a
midwife whose fashionable education had been acquired through a
circulating library. The Viscountess de Percemur looked down upon them.
Her "Lily Fingers" touched these vulgar hands with repugnance.

Clotilde, wrapped in lace, said to Madeleine as she went out: "Your
dinner was perfection. In a little while you will have the leading
political drawing-room in Paris."

As soon as she was alone with George she clasped him in her arms,
exclaiming: "Oh, my darling Pretty-boy, I love you more and more every
day!"

XII

The Place de la Trinite lay, almost deserted, under a dazzling July sun.
An oppressive heat was crushing Paris. It was as though the upper air,
scorched and deadened, had fallen upon the city--a thick, burning air
that pained the chests inhaling it. The fountains in front of the church
fell lazily. They seemed weary of flowing, tired out, limp, too; and the
water of the basins, in which leaves and bits of paper were floating,
looked greenish, thick and glaucous. A dog having jumped over the stone
rim, was bathing in the dubious fluid. A few people, seated on the
benches of the little circular garden skirting the front of the church,
watched the animal curiously.

Du Roy pulled out his watch. It was only three o'clock. He was half an
hour too soon. He laughed as he thought of this appointment. "Churches
serve for anything as far as she is concerned," said he to himself.
"They console her for having married a Jew, enable her to assume an
attitude of protestation in the world of politics and a respectable one
in that of fashion, and serve as a shelter to her gallant rendezvous. So
much for the habit of making use of religion as an umbrella. If it is
fine it is a walking stick; if sunshiny, a parasol; if it rains, a
shelter; and if one does not go out, why, one leaves it in the hall.