t his mistress was
watching and analyzing his wife. The next day, Marianne with exquisite
grace, but keen as a poisoned dart, said to him:

"Do you know, my dear, Madame Vaudrey is charming?"

He felt himself blush at these words hurled at him point-blank, then his
cheeks grew cold. Never, till that moment, had Mademoiselle Kayser
mentioned Adrienne's name.

"You like blondes, I see!" said Marianne. "I am almost inclined to be
jealous!"

"Will you do me a great favor?" then interrupted Sulpice. "Never let us
speak of her. Let us speak of ourselves."

"Yes," continued the perfidious Marianne in a patronizing tone, as if
she had not heard him, "she is certainly charming! A trifle--just a
trifle--bourgeoise--But charming! Decidedly charming!"

Knowing Vaudrey well, she understood what a keen weapon she was plunging
straight into him. A little _bourgeoise_! This conclusion rendered by
the Parisienne with a smile now haunted Sulpice, who was annoyed at
himself and he sought to discover in his wife, the dear creature whom he
had so tenderly loved, whom he still loved, some self-satisfying excuse
for his passion and adultery.

"Bah!" he thought. "Is it adultery? There is no adultery save for the
wife. The husband's faithlessness is called a caprice, an adventure, a
craving or madness of the senses. Only the wife is adulterous."

In all candor, what sin had he committed? Was Adrienne less loved? He
would have sacrificed his life for her. He overwhelmed her with
presents, created surprises for her that she received without emotion,
and simply said in a doleful tone:

"How good you are, my dear!"

He was ruining neither her nor his children! Ah! if he but had children!
Why had not Adrienne had children? A woman should be a mother. It is
maternity that in the marriage estate justifies a man in abandoning his
freedom and a woman her shame.

A mother! And was Marianne a mother?

No, but Marianne was Marianne. Marianne was not created for the domestic
fireside and the cradle. Her statuesque and seductively lovely limbs
only craved for the writhings of pleasure, not the pangs of maternity.
Adrienne, on the contrary, was the wife, and the childless wife soon
took another name: the friend. No, he robbed her of nothing, Adrienne
lost none of his affection, none of his fortune. The money squandered at
Rue Prony, Vaudrey had acquired; it was the savings of the honest people
of Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, the parents, the _old fol