of Thuillier: "You haven't any strength, my child; you must never do
anything again." She showed up Celeste's incapacity by that display of
sympathy with which strength, seeming to pity weakness, finds means to
boast of its own powers.

But, as all despotic natures liking to exercise their strength are full
of tenderness for physical sufferings, Brigitte took such real care of
her sister-in-law as to satisfy Celeste's mother when she came to see
her daughter. After Madame Thuillier recovered, however, she called her,
in Celeste's hearing, "a helpless creature, good for nothing!" which
sent the poor thing crying to her room. When Thuillier found her there,
drying her eyes, he excused her sister, saying:--

"She is an excellent woman, but rather hasty; she loves you in her own
way; she behaves just so with me."

Celeste, remembering the maternal care of her sister-in-law during her
illness, forgave the wound. Brigitte always treated her brother as the
king of the family; she exalted him to Celeste, and made him out an
autocrat, a Ladislas, an infallible pope. Madame Thuillier having lost
her father and grandfather, and being well-nigh deserted by her mother,
who came to see her on Thursdays only (she herself spending Sundays at
Auteuil in summer), had no one left to love except her husband, and
she did love him,--in the first place, because he was her husband, and
secondly, because he still remained to her "that handsome Thuillier."
Besides, he sometimes treated her like a wife, and all these reasons
together made her adore him. He seemed to her all the more perfect
because he often took up her defence and scolded his sister, not from
any real interest in his wife, but for pure selfishness, and in order to
have peace in the household during the very few moments that he stayed
there.

In fact, that handsome Thuillier was never at home except at dinner,
after which meal he went out, returning very late at night. He went to
balls and other social festivities by himself, precisely as if he were
still a bachelor. Thus the two women were always alone together. Celeste
insensibly fell into a passive attitude, and became what Brigitte wanted
her,--a helot. The Queen Elizabeth of the household then passed
from despotism to a sort of pity for the poor victim who was always
sacrificed. She ended by softening her haughty ways, her cutting
speech, her contemptuous tones, as soon as she was certain that her
sister-in-law was comple