ve left me to walk home with her husband; it was now
I who had to find excuses to join her. I found her with her children,
explaining the rules of backgammon to Jacques.

"See there," said the count, who was always jealous of the affection she
showed for her children; "it is for them that I am neglected. Husbands,
my dear Felix, are always suppressed. The most virtuous woman in the
world has ways of satisfying her desire to rob conjugal affection."

She said nothing and continued as before.

"Jacques," he said, "come here."

Jacques objected slightly.

"Your father wants you; go at once, my son," said his mother, pushing
him.

"They love me by order," said the old man, who sometimes perceived his
situation.

"Monsieur," she answered, passing her hand over Madeleine's smooth
tresses, which were dressed that day "a la belle Ferronniere"; "do not
be unjust to us poor women; life is not so easy for us to bear. Perhaps
the children are the virtues of a mother."

"My dear," said the count, who took it into his head to be logical,
"what you say signifies that women who have no children would have no
virtue, and would leave their husbands in the lurch."

The countess rose hastily and took Madeleine to the portico.

"That's marriage, my dear fellow," remarked the count to me. "Do you
mean to imply by going off in that manner that I am talking nonsense?"
he cried to his wife, taking his son by the hand and going to the
portico after her with a furious look in his eyes.

"On the contrary, Monsieur, you frightened me. Your words hurt me
cruelly," she added, in a hollow voice. "If virtue does not consist in
sacrificing everything to our children and our husband, what is virtue?"

"Sac-ri-ficing!" cried the count, making each syllable the blow of a
sledge-hammer on the heart of his victim. "What have you sacrificed to
your children? What do you sacrifice to me? Speak! what means all this?
Answer. What is going on here? What did you mean by what you said?"

"Monsieur," she replied, "would you be satisfied to be loved for love of
God, or to know your wife virtuous for virtue's sake?"

"Madame is right," I said, interposing in a shaken voice which vibrated
in two hearts; "yes, the noblest privilege conferred by reason is to
attribute our virtues to the beings whose happiness is our work, and
whom we render happy, not from policy, nor from duty, but from an
inexhaustible and voluntary affection--"

A tear shone in Henri