I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will
you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!"

"Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten
pretty women at least seven are false?"

But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is
the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no
counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly.
Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice.

"You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful
wife, and she is virtuous."

"I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made
her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are
avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my
love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But
was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous
than this Valerie?"

"She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves
whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we
are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour,
Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth
century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police."

"How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without
heeding Crevel.

"It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said
Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred
times more profligate than Josepha."

"And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs
a year!" cried Hulot.

"And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, with the insolence of a
financier who scorns so small a sum.

"You do not love her, that is very evident," said the Baron dolefully.

"I have had enough of her," replied Crevel, "for she has had more than
three hundred thousand francs of mine!"

"Where is it? Where does it all go?" said the Baron, clasping his head
in his hands.

"If we had come to an agreement, like the simple young men who combine
to maintain a twopenny baggage, she would have cost us less."

"That is an idea"! replied the Baron. "But she would still be cheating
us; for, my burly friend, what do you say to this Brazilian?"

"Ay, old sly fox, you are right, we are swindled like--like
shareholders!" said Crevel. "All such women are an unlimited
liability, and we the sleeping partners."

"Then