her, but she could not afford to stay. She went to
those cheaper lodgings down the street. She used to be on the stage over
in the States, and then she came back here, and there was a man--married
to him or not I do not know, and I will not think. Well, the man--the
brute--he left her when she got ill--but yes, forsook her absolutely! He
was a land-agent or something like that, and all very fine to your face,
to promise and to pretend--just make-believe. When her sickness got
worse, off he went with 'Au revoir, my dear--I will be back to supper.'
Supper! If she'd waited for her supper till he came back, she'd have
waited as long as I've done for the fortune the gipsy promised me forty
years ago. Away he went, the rogue, without a thought of her, and with
another woman. That's what hurt her most of all. Straight from her that
could hardly drag herself about--ah, yes, and has been as handsome a
woman as ever was!--straight from her he went to a slut. She was a slut,
m'sieu'--did I not know her? Did Ma'm'selle Slut not wait at table in
this house and lead the men a dance here night and day-day and night
till I found it out! Well, off he went with the slut, and left the lady
behind.... You men, you treat women so."

Jean Jacques put out a hand as though to argue with her. "Sometimes it
is the other way," he retorted. "Most of us have seen it like that."

"Well, for sure, you're right enough there, m'sieu'," was the response.
"I've got nothing to say to that, except that it's a man that runs away
with a woman, or that gets her to leave her husband when she does go.
There's always a man that says, 'Come along, I'm the better chap for
you.'"

Jean Jacques wearily turned his head away towards the cage where his
canary was beginning to pipe its evening lay.

"It all comes to the same thing in the end," he said pensively; and then
he who had been so quiet since he came to the little hotel--Glozel's, it
was called--began to move about the room excitedly, running his fingers
through his still bushy hair, which, to his credit, was always as clean
as could be, burnished and shiny even at his mid-century period. He
began murmuring to himself, and a frown settled on his fore head. Mme.
Glozel saw that she had perturbed him, and that no doubt she had roused
some memories which made sombre the sunny little room where the canary
sang; where, to ravish the eyes of the pessimist, was a picture of Louis
XVI. going to heaven in the arms o