isson, with rancour, "because of his
jealousies of the cat's place in Madame Jolicoeur's affections--the
affections which he so hopelessly hoped, forgetful of his own
repulsiveness, to win for himself!"

"Ah, she has done well, that dear lady," said Madame Jouval warmly. "As
between the Notary--repulsive, as Monsieur justly terms him--and the
charming Major, her instincts rightly have directed her. To her worthy
cat, who aided in her choosing, she has reason to be grateful. Now her
cruelly wounded heart will find solace. That she should wed again, and
happily, was Heaven's will."

"It was the will of the baggage herself!" declared Monsieur Brisson with
bitterness. "Hardly had she put on her travesty of a mourning than she
began her oglings of whole armies of men!"

Aside from having confected with her own hands the mourning to which
Monsieur Brisson referred so disparagingly, Madame Jouval was not one to
hear calmly the ascription of the term baggage--the word has not lost in
its native French, as it has lost in its naturalized English, its
original epithetical intensity--to a patroness from whom she was in the
very article of receiving an order for an exceptionally rich trousseau.
Naturally, she bristled. "Monsieur must admit at least," she said
sharply, "that her oglings did not come in his direction;" and with an
irritatingly smooth sweetness added: "As to the dealings of Monsieur
Peloux with the cat, Monsieur doubtless speaks with an assured
knowledge. Remembering, as we all do, the affair of the unhappy old
woman, it is easy to perceive that to Monsieur, above all others, any
one in need of poisonings would come!"

The thrust was so keen that for the moment Monsieur Brisson met it only
with a savage glare. Then the bottle that he handed to Madame Jouval
inspired him with an answer. "Madame is in error," he said with
politeness. "For poisons it is possible to go variously elsewhere--as,
for example, to Madame's tongue." Had he stopped with that retort
courteous, but also searching, he would have done well. He did ill by
adding to it the retort brutal: "But that old women of necessity come to
me for their hair-dyes is another matter. That much I grant to Madame
with all good will."

Admirably restraining herself, Madame Jouval replied in tones of
sympathy: "Monsieur receives my commiserations in his misfortunes."
Losing a large part of her restraint, she continued, her eyes
glittering: "Yet Monsieur's temperame