torture, present so calm a face? Isn't his whole air patriarchal?"

"Yes; but go and ask him if he went to the war in Germany," I said.

"Why not?"

And with that audacity which is seldom lacking to women when some
action attracts them, or their minds are impelled by curiosity, my
neighbor went up to the purveyor.

"Were you ever in Germany?" she asked.

Taillefer came near dropping his cup and saucer.

"I, madame? No, never."

"What are you talking about, Taillefer"; said our host, interrupting
him. "Were you not in the commissariat during the campaign of Wagram?"

"Ah, true!" replied Taillefer, "I was there at that time."

"You are mistaken," said my neighbor, returning to my side; "that's a
good man."

"Well," I cried, "before the end of this evening, I will hunt that
murderer out of the slough in which he is hiding."

Every day, before our eyes, a moral phenomenon of amazing profundity
takes place which is, nevertheless, so simple as never to be noticed.
If two men meet in a salon, one of whom has the right to hate or