interest. With energy enough to scale Paradise, to have to devote it
to procuring bread and water, a few rags, and a garret!--That is
martyrdom, my dear, and I have withered under it."

She broke off suddenly, and shot a black flash into Madame Marneffe's
blue eyes, a glance that pierced the pretty woman's soul, as the point
of a dagger might have pierced her heart.

"And what is the use of talking?" she exclaimed in reproof to herself.
"I never said so much before, believe me! The tables will be turned
yet!" she added after a pause. "As you so wisely say, let us sharpen
our teeth, and pull down all the hay we can get."

"You are very wise," said Madame Marneffe, who had been frightened by
this scene, and had no remembrance of having uttered this maxim. "I am
sure you are right, my dear child. Life is not so long after all, and
we must make the best of it, and make use of others to contribute to
our enjoyment. Even I have learned that, young as I am. I was brought
up a spoilt child, my father married ambitiously, and almost forgot
me, after making me his idol and bringing me up like a queen's
daughter! My poor mother, who filled my head with splendid visions,
died of grief at seeing me married to an office clerk with twelve
hundred francs a year, at nine-and-thirty an aged and hardened
libertine, as corrupt as the hulks, looking on me, as others looked on
you, as a means of fortune!--Well, in that wretched man, I have found
the best of husbands. He prefers the squalid sluts he picks up at the
street corners, and leaves me free. Though he keeps all his salary to
himself, he never asks me where I get money to live on----"

And she in her turn stopped short, as a woman does who feels herself
carried away by the torrent of her confessions; struck, too, by
Lisbeth's eager attention, she thought well to make sure of Lisbeth
before revealing her last secrets.

"You see, dear child, how entire is my confidence in you!" she
presently added, to which Lisbeth replied by a most comforting nod.

An oath may be taken by a look and a nod more solemnly than in a court
of justice.

"I keep up every appearance of respectability," Valerie went on,
laying her hand on Lisbeth's as if to accept her pledge. "I am a
married woman, and my own mistress, to such a degree, that in the
morning, when Marneffe sets out for the office, if he takes it into
his head to say good-bye and finds my door locked, he goes off without
a word. He cares