felt the touch of another man."

"Has your physician never felt your pulse?"

"Now you are laughing at me."

"No, madame, I admire you, because I comprehend you. But you let a man
hear your voice, you let yourself be seen, you--in short, you permit
our eyes to admire you--"

"Ah!" she said, interrupting him, "that is one of my griefs. Yes, I
wish it were possible for a married woman to live secluded with her
husband, as a mistress lives with her lover, for then--"

"Then why were you, two hours ago, on foot, disguised, in the rue
Soly?"

"The rue Soly, where is that?"

And her pure voice gave no sign of any emotion; no feature of her face
quivered; she did not blush; she remained calm.

"What! you did not go up to the second floor of a house in the rue des
Vieux-Augustins at the corner of the rue Soly? You did not have a
hackney-coach waiting near by? You did not return in it to the
flower-shop in the rue Richelieu, where you bought the feathers that
are now in your hair?"

"I did not leave my house this evening."