o'clock!
I must get the first of the pair off by three at the latest. By Jove,
provided they don't run up against one another! What bothers women are."

And he reflected that, after all, his own wife was the only one who
never bothered him at all. She lived in her own way, and seemed to be
very fond of him during the hours destined to love, for she would not
admit that the unchangeable order of the ordinary occupations of life
should be interfered with.

He walked slowly towards the rendezvous, mentally working himself up
against Madame Walter. "Ah! I will just receive her nicely if she has
nothing to tell me. Cambronne's language will be academical compared to
mine. I will tell her that I will never set foot in her house again, to
begin with."

He went in to wait for Madame Walter. She arrived almost immediately,
and as soon as she caught sight of him, she exclaimed, "Ah, you have had
my telegram! How fortunate."

He put on a grumpy expression, saying: "By Jove, yes; I found it at the
office just as I was going to start off to the Chamber. What is it you
want now?"

She had raised her veil to kiss him, and drew nearer with the timid and
submissive air of an oft-beaten dog.

"How cruel you are towards me! How harshly you speak to me! What have I
done to you? You cannot imagine how I suffer through you."

He growled: "Don't go on again in that style."

She was standing close to him, only waiting for a smile, a gesture, to
throw herself into his arms, and murmured: "You should not have taken me
to treat me thus, you should have left me sober-minded and happy as I
was. Do you remember what you said to me in the church, and how you
forced me into this house? And now, how do you speak to me? how do you
receive me? Oh, God! oh, God! what pain you give me!"

He stamped his foot, and exclaimed, violently: "Ah, bosh! That's enough
of it! I can't see you a moment without hearing all that foolery. One
would really think that I had carried you off at twelve years of age,
and that you were as ignorant as an angel. No, my dear, let us put
things in their proper light; there was no seduction of a young girl in
the business. You gave yourself to me at full years of discretion. I
thank you. I am infinitely grateful to you, but I am not bound to be
tied till death to your petticoat strings. You have a husband and I a
wife. We are neither of us free. We indulged in a mutual caprice, and it
is over."

"Oh, you are brutal, co