ou tired?"

"Yes--yes, I am tired... very tired... You know, when one is not used
to going out... I've had enough of it. I shall not go into the country
again. It would have been better to have stayed here. For the future, I
shall not stir out."

She could not persuade him to tell her about his little excursion, much
as she wished to.

For the first time in his life he got thoroughly drunk that night, and
had to be carried home.

QUEEN HORTENSE

In Argenteuil she was called Queen Hortense. No one knew why. Perhaps it
was because she had a commanding tone of voice; perhaps because she
was tall, bony, imperious; perhaps because she governed a kingdom of
servants, chickens, dogs, cats, canaries, parrots, all so dear to an old
maid's heart. But she did not spoil these familiar friends; she had for
them none of those endearing names, none of the foolish tenderness which
women seem to lavish on the soft fur of a purring cat. She governed
these beasts with authority; she reigned.

She was indeed an old maid--one of those old maids with a harsh voice
and angular motions, whose very soul seems to be hard. She never would
stand contradiction, argument, hesitation, indifference, laziness nor
fatigue. She had never been heard to complain, to regret anything,
to envy anyone. She would say: "Everyone has his share," with the
conviction of a fatalist. She did not go to church, she had no use
for priests, she hardly believed in God, calling all religious things
"weeper's wares."

For thirty years she had lived in her little house, with its tiny
garden running along the street; she had never changed her habits, only
changing her servants pitilessly, as soon as they reached twenty-one
years of age.

When her dogs, cats and birds would die of old age, or from an accident,
she would replace them without tears and without regret; with a little
spade she would bury the dead animal in a strip of ground, throwing a
few shovelfuls of earth over it and stamping it down with her feet in an
indifferent manner.

She had a few friends in town, families of clerks who went to Paris
every day. Once in a while she would be invited out, in the evening,
to tea. She would inevitably fall asleep, and she would have to be
awakened, when it was time for her to go home. She never allowed anyone
to accompany her, fearing neither light nor darkness. She did not appear
to like children.

She kept herself busy doing countless masculine tasks--c