"You see he is not here."

"Ah! that's true," returned the Marechale. "Your nurse is right! A
thousand apologies!"

And turning towards Frederick:

"So here you are--you?"

The familiar tone in which she addressed him, and in her own presence,
too, made Madame Arnoux flush as if she had received a slap right across
the face.

"I tell you again, he is not here!"

Then the Marechale, who was looking this way and that, said quietly:

"Let us go back together! I have a cab waiting below."

He pretended not to hear.

"Come! let us go!"

"Ah! yes! this is a good opportunity! Go! go!" said Madame Arnoux.

They went off together, and she stooped over the head of the stairs in
order to see them once more, and a laugh--piercing, heart-rending,
reached them from the place where she stood. Frederick pushed Rosanette
into the cab, sat down opposite her, and during the entire drive did not
utter a word.

The infamy, which it outraged him to see once more flowing back on him,
had been brought about by himself alone. He experienced at the same time
the dishonour of a crushing humiliation and the regret caused by the
loss of his new-found happiness. Just when, at last, he had it in his
grasp, it had for ever more become impossible, and that through the
fault of this girl of the town, this harlot. He would have liked to
strangle her. He was choking with rage. When they had got into the house
he flung his hat on a piece of furniture and tore off his cravat.

"Ha! you have just done a nice thing--confess it!"

She planted herself boldly in front of him.

"Ah! well, what of that? Where's the harm?"

"What! You are playing the spy on me?"

"Is that my fault? Why do you go to amuse yourself with virtuous
women?"

"Never mind! I don't wish you to insult them."

"How have I insulted them?"

He had no answer to make to this, and in a more spiteful tone:

"But on the other occasion, at the Champ de Mars----"

"Ah! you bore us to death with your old women!"

"Wretch!"

He raised his fist.

"Don't kill me! I'm pregnant!"

Frederick staggered back.

"You are lying!"

"Why, just look at me!"

She seized a candlestick, and pointing at her face:

"Don't you recognise the fact there?"

Little yellow spots dotted her skin, which was strangely swollen.
Frederick did not deny the evidence. He went to the window, and opened
it, took a few steps up and down the room, and then sank into an
armchair.

This event