nd keep her there until the
General's wrath has had time to cool; and then you can make him the
respectful apologies required under the circumstances.

Ferdinand
Do you think I would have asked your advice if the only difficulty lay
in the attainment of this trite and easy solution of the problem?

Ramel
Ah! I see, my dear friend. You have already married your
Gertrude--your angel--who has become to you like all other angels,
after their metamorphoses into a lawful wives.

Ferdinand
'Tis a hundred times worse than that! Gertrude, my dear sir, is now
Madame de Grandchamp.

Ramel
Oh, dear! How is it you've thrust yourself into such a hornets' nest?

Ferdinand
In the same way that people always thrust themselves into hornets'
nests; that is, with the hope of finding honey there.

Ramel
Oh, oh! This is a very serious matter! Now, really, you must conceal
nothing from me.

Ferdinand
Mlle. Gertrude de Meilhac, educated at St. Denis, without doubt loved
me first of all through ambition; she was glad to know that I was
rich, and did all she could to gain my attachment with a view to
marriage.

Ramel
Such is the game of all these intriguing orphan girls.

Ferdinand
But how came it about that Gertrude has ended by loving me so
sincerely? For her passion may be judged by its effects. I call it a
passion, but with her it is first love, sole and undivided love, which
dominates her whole life, and seems to consume her. When she found
that I was a ruined man, towards the close of the year 1816, and
knowing that I was like you, a poet, fond of luxury and art, of a soft
and happy life, in short, a mere spoilt child, she formed a plan at
once base and sublime, such a plan as disappointed passion suggests to
women who, for the sake of their love, do all that despots do for the
sake of their power; for them, the supreme law is that of their love--

Ramel
The facts, my dear fellow, give me the facts! You are making your
defence, recollect, and I am prosecuting attorney.

Ferdinand
While I was settling my mother in Brittany, Gertrude met General de
Grandchamp, who was seeking a governess for his daughter. She saw
nothing in this battered warrior, then fifty-eight years old, but a
money-box. She expected that she would soon be left a widow, wealthy
and in circumstances to claim her lover and her slave. She said to
herself that her marriage would be merely a bad dream, followed
quickly by a happy awakening. You see the d