t-about. It will
be a triumph! You'll cut quite an appearance in the world! How people
will talk of it! Why! you'll be a hero!"

Madame Schontz did not make an end of her sarcasms for two hours after
mid-day, in spite of Arthur's protestations. She then said she was
invited out to dinner, and advised her "faithless one" to go without her
to the Opera, for she herself was going to the Ambigu-Comique to meet
Madame de la Baudraye, a charming woman, a friend of Lousteau. Arthur
proposed, as proof of his eternal attachment to his little Aurelie and
his detestation of his wife, to start the next day for Italy, and live
as a married couple in Rome, Naples, Florence,--in short, wherever she
liked, offering her a gift of sixty thousand francs.

"All that is nonsense," she said. "It won't prevent you from making up
with your wife, and you'll do a wise thing."

Arthur and Aurelie parted on this formidable dialogue, he to play cards
and dine at the club, she to dress and spend the evening _tete-a-tete_
with Fabien.

Monsieur de Rochefide found Maxime at the club, and complained to him
like a man who feels that his happiness is being torn from his heart
by the roots, every fibre of which clung to it. Maxime listened to his
moans, as persons of social politeness are accustomed to listen, while
thinking of other things.

"I'm a man of good counsel in such matters, my dear fellow," he
answered. "Well, let me tell you, you are on the wrong road in letting
Aurelie see how dear she is to you. Allow me to present you to Madame
Antonia. There's a heart to let. You'll soon see La Schontz with other
eyes. She is thirty-seven years old, that Schontz of yours, and Madame
Antonia is only twenty-six! And what a woman! I may say she is my pupil.
If Madame Schontz persists in keeping on the hind heels of her pride,
don't you know what that means?"

"Faith, no!"

"That she wants to marry, and if that's the case, nothing can hinder her
from leaving you. After a lease of six years a woman has a right to do
so. Now, if you will only listen to me, you can do a better thing for
yourself. Your wife is to-day worth more than all the Schontzes
and Antonias of the quartier Saint-Georges. I admit the conquest is
difficult, but it is not impossible; and after all that has happened she
will make you as happy as an Orgon. In any case, you mustn't look like a
fool; come and sup to-night with Antonia."

"No, I love Aurelie too well; I won't give her any