"I swear to you that it is Madame Bonderoi."

"Then please give me the details."

"Here they are. During the life of Monsieur Bonderoi, the lawyer, people
said that she utilized his clerks for her own particular service. She is
one of those respectable middle-class women, with secret vices, and
inflexible principles, of whom there are so many. She liked good-looking
young fellows, and I should like to know what is more natural than that?
Do not we all like pretty girls?"

"As soon as old Bonderoi was dead, his widow began to live the peaceful
and irreproachable life of a woman with a fair, fixed income. She went to
church assiduously, and spoke evil of her neighbors, but gave no handle
to anyone for speaking ill of her, and when she grew old she became the
little wizened, sour-faced, mischievous woman whom you know. Well, this
adventure, which you would scarcely believe, happened last Friday.

"My friend, Jean d'Anglemare, is, as you know, a captain in a dragoon
regiment, who is quartered in the barracks in the _Rue de la Rivette_,
and when he got to his quarters the other morning, he found that two men
of his squadron had had a terrible quarrel. The rules about military
honor are very severe, and so a duel took place between them. After the
duel they became reconciled, and when their officer questioned them, they
told him what their quarrel had been about. They had fought on Madame
Bonderoi's account."

"Oh!"

"Yes, my dear fellow, about Madame Bonderoi."