t--your journalists
are most impertinent."

"Why? Do they ever trouble honest women?"

"They wouldn't trouble me if I had a husband who knew how to make them
treat me with respect!"

The baron laughed a strident, nervous laugh, which it was not pleasant
to hear, and which revealed the fact that intense suffering was hidden
beneath all this banter. "Would you like me to fight a duel then? After
twenty years has the idea of ridding yourself of me occurred to you
again? I can scarcely believe it. You know too well that you would
receive none of my money, that I have guarded against that. Besides, you
would be inconsolable if the newspapers ceased talking about you for a
single day. Respect yourself, and you will be respected. The publicity
you complain of is the last anchor which prevents society from drifting
one knows not where. Those who would not listen to the warning voice of
honor and conscience are restrained by the fear of a little paragraph
which might disclose their shame. Now that a woman no longer has a
conscience, the newspapers act in place of it. And I think it quite
right, for it is our only hope of salvation."

By the stir in the adjoining room, Pascal felt sure that the baroness
had stationed herself before the door to prevent her husband from
leaving her. "Ah! well, monsieur," she exclaimed, "I declare to you
that I must have Van Klopen's twenty-eight thousand francs before this
evening. I will have them, too; I am resolved to have them, and you will
give them to me."

"Oh!" thundered the baron, "you WILL have them--you will----" He paused,
and then, after a moment's reflection, he said: "Very well. So be it! I
will give you this amount, but not just now. Still if, as you say, it is
absolutely necessary that you should have it to-day, there is a means of
procuring it. Pawn your diamonds for thirty thousand francs--I authorize
you to do so; and I give you my word of honor that I will redeem them
within a week. Say, will you do this?" And, as the baroness made no
reply, he continued: "You don't answer! shall I tell you why? It is
because your diamonds were long since sold and replaced by imitation
ones; it is because you are head over heels in debt; it is because you
have stooped so low as to borrow your maid's savings; it is because you
already owe three thousand francs to one of my coachmen; it is because
our steward lends you money at the rate of thirty or forty per cent."

"It is false!"

The