ion was irrevocable, have carried it out
discreetly, with proper pride? That is what a gentleman would have done
in his position. Then one might have pitied him, and respected his
memory."

He recalled word for word his conversation with Felicie in the bedroom
an hour before the tragedy. He asked her if she had not for a time been
Chevalier's mistress. He had asked her this, not because he wanted to
know, for he had very little doubt of it, but in order to show that he
knew it. And she had replied indignantly: "Chevalier? He? Good gracious
no! You wouldn't have had me look at him!"

He did not blame her for having lied. All women lie. He rather enjoyed
the graceful and easy manner with which she had cast the fellow out of
her past. But he was vexed with her for having given herself to a
low-down actor. Chevalier spoilt Felicie for him. Why did she take
lovers of that type? Was she wanting in taste? Did she not exercise a
certain selection? Did she behave like a woman of the town? Did she lack
a certain sense of niceness which warns women as to what they may or may
not do? Didn't she know how to behave? Well, this was the sort of thing
that happened if women had no breeding. He blamed Felicie for the
accident that had occurred and was relieved of a heavy incubus.

Madame Simonneau was not at home. He inquired her whereabouts of the
waiters in the cafe, the grocer's assistants, the girls at the laundry,
the police, and the postman. At last, following the direction of a
neighbour, he found her poulticing an old lady, for she was a nurse. Her
face was purple and she reeked of brandy. He sent her to watch the
corpse. He instructed her to cover it with a sheet, and to hold herself
at the disposal of the commissary and the doctor, who would come for the
particulars. She replied, somewhat nettled, that she knew please God,
what she had to do. She did indeed know. Madame Simonneau was born in a
social circle which is obsequious to the constituted authorities and
respects the dead. But when, having questioned Monsieur de Ligny, she
learnt that he had dragged the body into the front room, she could not
conceal from him that such behaviour was imprudent and might expose him
to unpleasantness.

"You ought not to have done it," she told him. "When anyone has killed
himself, you must never touch him before the police come."

Ligny thereupon went off to notify the commissary. The first excitement
having passed off, he no longer fe