h I have built there."

"If I have not visited Madame de V-----, whose fault is it?" she
replied. "You are so jealous that you will not allow her either to
visit her friends or to receive them."

"I jealous!" cried Monsieur de V-----, "after four years of marriage,
and after having had three children!"

"Hush," said Emilie, striking the fingers of the baron with her fan,
"Louise is not asleep!"

The carriage stopped, and the baron offered his hand to his wife's
fair friend and helped her to get out.

"I hope," said Madame B-----, "that you will not prevent Louise from
coming to the ball which I am giving this week."

The baron made her a respectful bow.

This ball was a triumph of Madame B-----'s and the ruin of the husband
of Louise; for he became desperately enamored of Emilie, to whom he
would have sacrificed a hundred lawful wives.

Some months after that evening on which the baron gained some hopes of
succeeding with his wife's friend, he found himself one morning at the
house of Madame B-----, when the maid came to announce the Baroness de
V-----.

"Ah!" cried Emilie, "if Louise were to see you with me at such an hour
as this, she would be capable of compromising me. Go into that closet
and don't make the least noise."

The husband, caught like a mouse in a trap, concealed himself in the
closet.

"Good-day, my dear!" said the two women, kissing each other.

"Why are you come so early?" asked Emilie.

"Oh! my dear, cannot you guess? I came to have an understanding with
you!"

"What, a duel?"

"Precisely, my dear. I am not like you, not I! I love my husband and
am jealous of him. You! you are beautiful, charming, you have the
right to be a coquette, you can very well make fun of B-----, to whom
your virtue seems to be of little importance. But as you have plenty
of lovers in society, I beg you that you will leave me my husband. He
is always at your house, and he certainly would not come unless you
were the attraction."

"What a very pretty jacket you have on."

"Do you think so? My maid made it."

"Then I shall get Anastasia to take a lesson from Flore--"

"So, then, my dear, I count on your friendship to refrain from
bringing trouble in my house."

"But, my child, I do not know how you can conceive that I should fall
in love with your husband; he is coarse and fat as a deputy of the
centre. He is short and ugly--Ah! I will allow that he is generous,
but that is all you can say for him, a