ncidents which have the effect in life that the ringing of a bell has
in inducing a swarm of bees to settle, went up to Lisbeth's rooms to
give vent to one of those comforting lamentations--a sort of cigarette
blown off from the tongue--by which women alleviate the minor miseries
of life.

"Oh, Lisbeth, my love, two hours of Crevel this morning! It is
crushing! How I wish I could send you in my place!"

"That, unluckily, is impossible," said Lisbeth, smiling. "I shall die
a maid."

"Two old men lovers! Really, I am ashamed sometimes! If my poor mother
could see me."

"You are mistaking me for Crevel!" said Lisbeth.

"Tell me, my little Betty, do you not despise me?"

"Oh! if I had but been pretty, what adventures I would have had!"
cried Lisbeth. "That is your justification."

"But you would have acted only at the dictates of your heart," said
Madame Marneffe, with a sigh.

"Pooh! Marneffe is a dead man they have forgotten to bury," replied
Lisbeth. "The Baron is as good as your husband; Crevel is your adorer;
it seems to me that you are quite in order--like every other married
woman."

"No, it is not that, dear, adorable thing; that is not where the shoe
pinches; you do not choose to understand."

"Yes, I do," said Lisbeth. "The unexpressed factor is part of my
revenge; what can I do? I am working it out."

"I love Wenceslas so that I am positively growing thin, and I can
never see him," said Valerie, throwing up her arms. "Hulot asks him to
dinner, and my artist declines. He does not know that I idolize him,
the wretch! What is his wife after all? Fine flesh! Yes, she is
handsome, but I--I know myself--I am worse!"

"Be quite easy, my child, he will come," said Lisbeth, in the tone of
a nurse to an impatient child. "He shall."

"But when?"

"This week perhaps."

"Give me a kiss."

As may be seen, these two women were but one. Everything Valerie did,
even her most reckless actions, her pleasures, her little sulks, were
decided on after serious deliberation between them.

Lisbeth, strangely excited by this harlot existence, advised Valerie
on every step, and pursued her course of revenge with pitiless logic.
She really adored Valerie; she had taken her to be her child, her
friend, her love; she found her docile, as Creoles are, yielding from
voluptuous indolence; she chattered with her morning after morning
with more pleasure than with Wenceslas; they could laugh together over
the mischief they p