mark.--My dear fellow, we are all so much _on_ here, that it was
necessary to close the Opera. The manager is as drunk as a
cornet-a-piston; he is hiccuping already."

"Oh, Josepha!----" cried the Baron.

"Now, can anything be more absurd than explanations?" she broke in
with a smile. "Look here; can you stand six hundred thousand francs
which this house and furniture cost? Can you give me a bond to the
tune of thirty thousand francs a year, which is what the Duke has just
given me in a packet of common sugared almonds from the grocer's?--a
pretty notion that----"

"What an atrocity!" cried Hulot, who in his fury would have given his
wife's diamonds to stand in the Duc d'Herouville's shoes for
twenty-four hours.

"Atrocity is my trade," said she. "So that is how you take it? Well,
why don't you float a company? Goodness me! my poor dyed Tom, you
ought to be grateful to me; I have thrown you over just when you would
have spent on me your widow's fortune, your daughter's portion.--What,
tears! The Empire is a thing of the past--I hail the coming Empire!"

She struck a tragic attitude, and exclaimed:

"They call you Hulot! Nay, I know you not--"

And she went into the other room.

Through the door, left ajar, there came, like a lightning-flash, a