onday. You were never
surprised at that, and he never brought you any. To-day he leaves me
his fortune for the same reason, because he had no one else to leave it
to. It would on the other hand have been extremely surprising if he had
left it to you."

"Why?"

"What are you to him?"

She spoke so naturally and so calmly that Georges hesitated before
replying: "It makes no difference; we cannot accept that bequest under
those conditions. Everyone would talk about it and laugh at me. My
fellow-journalists are already too much disposed to be jealous of me
and to attack me. I have to be especially careful of my honor and my
reputation. I cannot permit my wife to accept a legacy of that kind
from a man whom rumor has already assigned to her as her lover.
Forestier might perhaps have tolerated that, but I shall not."

She replied gently: "Very well, my dear, we will not take it; it will
be a million less in our pockets, that is all."

Georges paced the room and uttered his thoughts aloud, thus speaking to
his wife without addressing her:

"Yes, a million--so much the worse. He did not think when making his
will what a breach of etiquette he was committing. He did not realize
in what a false, ridiculous position he was placing me. He should have
left half of it to me--that would have made matters right."

He seated himself, crossed his legs and began to twist the ends of his
mustache, as was his custom when annoyed, uneasy, or pondering over a
weighty question.

Madeleine took up a piece of embroidery upon which she worked
occasionally, and said: "I have nothing to say. You must decide."

It was some time before he replied; then he said hesitatingly: "The
world would never understand how it was that Vaudrec constituted you
his sole heiress and that I allowed it. To accept that legacy would be
to avow guilty relations on your part and an infamous lack of
self-respect on mine. Do you know how the acceptance of it might be
interpreted? We should have to find some adroit means of palliating it.
We should have to give people to suppose, for instance, that he divided
his fortune between us, giving half to you and half to me."

She said: "I do not see how that can be done, since there is a formal
will."

He replied: "Oh, that is very simple. We have no children; you can
therefore deed me part of the inheritance. In that way we can silence
malignant tongues."

She answered somewhat impatiently: "I do not see how we can