t is not Madeleine's, it is dark."

He smiled. "It probably belongs to the housemaid."

But she glanced at the vest with the care of a police-inspector and
found a second hair twisted around a second button; then she saw a
third; and turning pale and trembling somewhat, she exclaimed: "Oh,
some woman has left hairs around all your buttons."

In surprise, he stammered: "Why you--you are mad."

She continued to unwind the hairs and cast them upon the floor. With
her woman's instinct she had divined their meaning and gasped in her
anger, ready to cry:

"She loves you and she wished you to carry away with you something of
hers. Oh, you are a traitor." She uttered a shrill, nervous cry: "Oh,
it is an old woman's hair--here is a white one--you have taken a fancy
to an old woman now. Then you do not need me--keep the other one." She
rose.

He attempted to detain her and stammered: "No--Clo--you are absurd--I
do not know whose it is--listen--stay--see--stay--"

But she repeated: "Keep your old woman--keep her--have a chain made of
her hair--of her gray hair--there is enough for that--"

Hastily she donned her hat and veil, and when he attempted to touch her
she struck him in the face, and made her escape while he was stunned by
the blow. When he found that he was alone, he cursed Mme. Walter,
bathed his face, and went out vowing vengeance. That time he would not
pardon. No, indeed.

He strolled to the boulevard and stopped at a jeweler's to look at a
chronometer he had wanted for some time and which would cost eighteen
hundred francs. He thought with joy: "If I make my seventy thousand
francs, I can pay for it"--and he began to dream of all the things he
would do when he got the money. First of all he would become a deputy;
then he would buy the chronometer; then he would speculate on 'Change,
and then, and then--he did not enter the office, preferring to confer
with Madeleine before seeing Walter again and writing his article; he
turned toward home. He reached Rue Drouot when he paused; he had
forgotten to inquire for Count de Vaudrec, who lived on Chaussee
d'Antin. He retraced his steps with a light heart, thinking of a
thousand things--of the fortune he would make,--of that rascal of a
Laroche, and of old Walter.

He was not at all uneasy as to Clotilde's anger, knowing that she would
soon forgive him.

When he asked the janitor of the house in which Count de Vaudrec lived:
"How is M. de Vaudrec? I have heard t