"Now, do you understand my claim? Your husband, dear lady, has robbed
me of my joy in life, the only happiness I have known since I became a
widower. Yes, if I had not been so unlucky as to come across that old
rip, Josepha would still be mine; for I, you know, should never have
placed her on the stage. She would have lived obscure, well conducted,
and mine. Oh! if you could but have seen her eight years ago, slight
and wiry, with the golden skin of an Andalusian, as they say, black
hair as shiny as satin, an eye that flashed lightning under long brown
lashes, the style of a duchess in every movement, the modesty of a
dependent, decent grace, and the pretty ways of a wild fawn. And by
that Hulot's doing all this charm and purity has been degraded to a
man-trap, a money-box for five-franc pieces! The girl is the Queen of
Trollops; and nowadays she humbugs every one--she who knew nothing,
not even that word."

At this stage the retired perfumer wiped his eyes, which were full of
tears. The sincerity of his grief touched Madame Hulot, and roused her
from the meditation into which she had sunk.

"Tell me, madame, is a man of fifty-two likely to find such another
jewel? At my age love costs thirty thousand francs a year. It is
through your husband's experience that I know the price, and I love
Celestine too truly to be her ruin. When I saw you, at the first
evening party you gave in our honor, I wondered how that scoundrel
Hulot could keep a Jenny Cadine--you had the manner of an Empress. You
do not look thirty," he went on. "To me, madame, you look young, and
you are beautiful. On my word of honor, that evening I was struck to
the heart. I said to myself, 'If I had not Josepha, since old Hulot
neglects his wife, she would fit me like a glove.' Forgive me--it is a