band this evening. You can reckon on him; he will not talk. He is a
very safe man, and there is no danger."

But she had eaten all the sweetmeats. She crushed up the bag between her
hands and flung it into the fireplace. Then she said, "Let us go to
bed," and without getting up, began to unbutton George's waistcoat. All
at once she stopped, and pulling out between two fingers a long hair,
caught in a buttonhole, began to laugh. "There, you have brought away
one of Madeleine's hairs. There is a faithful husband for you."

Then, becoming once more serious, she carefully examined on her head the
almost imperceptible thread she had found, and murmured: "It is not
Madeleine's, it is too dark."

He smiled, saying: "It is very likely one of the maid's."

But she was inspecting the waistcoat with the attention of a detective,
and collected a second hair rolled round a button; then she perceived a
third, and pale and somewhat trembling, exclaimed: "Oh, you have been
sleeping with a woman who has wrapped her hair round all your buttons."

He was astonished, and gasped out: "No, you are mad."

All at once he remembered, understood it all, was uneasy at first, and
then denied the charge with a chuckle, not vexed at the bottom that she
should suspect him of other loves. She kept on searching, and still
found hairs, which she rapidly untwisted and threw on the carpet. She
had guessed matters with her artful woman's instinct, and stammered out,
vexed, angry, and ready to cry: "She loves you, she does--and she wanted
you to take away something belonging to her. Oh, what a traitor you
are!" But all at once she gave a cry, a shrill cry of nervous joy. "Oh!
oh! it is an old woman--here is a white hair. Ah, you go in for old
women now! Do they pay you, eh--do they pay you? Ah, so you have come to
old women, have you? Then you have no longer any need of me. Keep the
other one."

She rose, ran to her bodice thrown onto a chair, and began hurriedly to
put it on again. He sought to retain her, stammering confusedly: "But,
no, Clo, you are silly. I do not know anything about it. Listen
now--stay here. Come, now--stay here."

She repeated: "Keep your old woman--keep her. Have a ring made out of
her hair--out of her white hair. You have enough of it for that."

With abrupt and swift movements she had dressed herself and put on her
bonnet and veil, and when he sought to take hold of her, gave him a
smack with all her strength. While he re