eplied with an untroubled look:

"Yes."

"You see him often, then?"

"Oh, no! only when he comes to his mother's house. 'Tis ten months now
since he came. He promised, however, to be more particular."

"The promises of men are not to be too much relied on, my child."

"But he has not deceived me!"

"As he did others!"

Louise shivered: "Can it be by any chance that he promised something to
her;" and her features became distracted with distrust and hate.

Madame Arnoux was almost afraid of her; she would have gladly withdrawn
what she had said. Then both became silent.

As Frederick was sitting opposite them on a folding-stool, they kept
staring at him, the one with propriety out of the corner of her eye, the
other boldly, with parted lips, so that Madame Dambreuse said to him:

"Come, now, turn round, and let her have a good look at you!"

"Whom do you mean?"

"Why, Monsieur Roque's daughter!"

And she rallied him on having won the heart of this young girl from the
provinces. He denied that this was so, and tried to make a laugh of it.

"Is it credible, I ask you? Such an ugly creature!"

However, he experienced an intense feeling of gratified vanity. He
recalled to mind the reunion from which he had returned one night, some
time before, his heart filled with bitter humiliation, and he drew a
deep breath, for it seemed to him that he was now in the environment
that really suited him, as if all these things, including the Dambreuse
mansion, belonged to himself. The ladies formed a semicircle around him
while they listened to what he was saying, and in order to create an
effect, he declared that he was in favor of the re-establishment of
divorce, which he maintained should be easily procurable, so as to
enable people to quit one another and come back to one another without
any limit as often as they liked. They uttered loud protests; a few of
them began to talk in whispers. Little exclamations every now and then
burst forth from the place where the wall was overshadowed with
aristolochia. One would imagine that it was a mirthful cackling of hens;
and he developed his theory with that self-complacency which is
generated by the consciousness of success. A man-servant brought into
the arbour a tray laden with ices. The gentlemen drew close together and
began to chat about the recent arrests.

Thereupon Frederick revenged himself on the Vicomte by making him
believe that he might be prosecuted as a Legitimi