e Wissembourg, his
intimate friend, and became one of the officers who organized the
improvised troops whose rout brought the Napoleonic cycle to a close
at Waterloo. In 1816 the Baron was one of the men best hated by the
Feltre administration, and was not reinstated in the Commissariat till
1823, when he was needed for the Spanish war. In 1830 he took office
as the fourth wheel of the coach, at the time of the levies, a sort of
conscription made by Louis Philippe on the old Napoleonic soldiery.
From the time when the younger branch ascended the throne, having
taken an active part in bringing that about, he was regarded as an
indispensable authority at the War Office. He had already won his
Marshal's baton, and the King could do no more for him unless by
making him minister or a peer of France.

From 1818 till 1823, having no official occupation, Baron Hulot had
gone on active service to womankind. Madame Hulot dated her Hector's
first infidelities from the grand _finale_ of the Empire. Thus, for
twelve years the Baroness had filled the part in her household of
_prima donna assoluta_, without a rival. She still could boast of the
old-fashioned, inveterate affection which husbands feel for wives who
are resigned to be gentle and virtuous helpmates; she knew that if she
had a rival, that rival would not subsist for two hours under a word
of reproof from herself; but she shut her eyes, she stopped her ears,
she would know nothing of her husband's proceedings outside his home.
In short, she treated her Hector as a mother treats a spoilt child.

Three years before the conversation reported above, Hortense, at the
Theatre des Varietes, had recognized her father in a lower tier
stage-box with Jenny Cadine, and had exclaimed:

"There is papa!"

"You are mistaken, my darling; he is at the Marshal's," the Baroness
replied.

She too had seen Jenny Cadine; but instead of feeling a pang when she
saw how pretty she was, she said to herself, "That rascal Hector must
think himself very lucky."

She suffered nevertheless; she gave herself up in secret to rages of
torment; but as soon as she saw Hector, she always remembered her
twelve years of perfect happiness, and could not find it in her to
utter a word of complaint. She would have been glad if the Baron would
have taken her into his confidence; but she never dared to let him see
that she knew of his kicking over the traces, out of respect for her
husband. Such an excess of d