ichever
it might be? Had Helene avenged her father? Her jealousy surely was
the sword of God. And yet when I looked at the mother I shivered. What
fearful ordeal awaited her when she should return to her husband, the
judge before whom she must stand all her days? And here with her was an
inseparable, incorruptible witness. A child's forehead is transparent,
a child's face hides no thoughts, and a lie, like a red flame set within
glows out red that colors even the eyes. But the unhappy woman had not
thought as yet of the punishment awaiting her at home; she was staring
into the Bievre.

Such an event must inevitably send ghastly echoes through a woman's
life, and here is one of the most terrible of the reverberations that
troubled Julie's love from time to time.

Several years had gone by. The Marquis de Vandenesse wore mourning for
his father, and succeeded to his estates. One evening, therefore, after
dinner it happened that a notary was present in his house. This was
no pettifogging lawyer after Sterne's pattern, but a very solid,
substantial notary of Paris, one of your estimable men who do a stupid
thing pompously, set down a foot heavily upon your private corn, and
then ask what in the world there is to cry out about? If, by accident,
they come to know the full extent of the enormity, "Upon my word," cry
they, "I hadn't a notion!" This was a well-intentioned ass, in short,
who could see nothing in life but deeds and documents.

Mme. de Aiglemont had been dining with M. de Vandenesse; her husband
had excused himself before dinner was over, for he was taking his two
children to the play. They were to go to some Boulevard theatre or
other, to the Ambigu-Comique or the Gaiete, sensational melodrama being
judged harmless here in Paris, and suitable pabulum for childhood,
because innocence is always triumphant in the fifth act. The boy and
girl had teased their father to be there before the curtain rose, so he
had left the table before dessert was served.

But the notary, the imperturbable notary, utterly incapable of asking
himself why Mme. d'Aiglemont should have allowed her husband and
children to go without her to the play, sat on as if he were screwed to
his chair. Dinner was over, dessert had been prolonged by discussion,
and coffee delayed. All these things consumed time, doubtless precious,
and drew impatient movements from that charming woman; she looked not
unlike a thoroughbred pawing the ground before