me boil, that old Doulce, with her morality. Does she think people have
forgotten her adventures? If so, she is mistaken. Madame Ravaud tells
one of them six days out of seven. Everybody knows that she reduced her
husband, the musician, to such a state of exhaustion that one night he
tumbled into his cornet. As for her lovers, magnificent men, just ask
Madame Michon. Why, in less than two years she made mere shadows of
them, mere puffs of breath. That's the way she controlled them! And
supposing anyone had told her that she was lost to art!"

Dr. Trublet extended his two hands, palms outward, towards Nanteuil, as
though to stop her.

"Do not excite yourself, my child. Madame Doulce is sincere. She used
to love men, now she loves God. One loves what one can, as one can, and
with what one has. She has become chaste and pious at the fitting age.
She is diligent in the practices of her religion: she goes to Mass on
Sundays and feast days, she----"

"Well, she is right to go to Mass," asserted Nanteuil "Michon, light a
candle for me, to heat my rouge. I must do my lips again. Certainly, she
is quite right to go to Mass, but religion does not forbid one to have a
lover."

"You think not?" asked the doctor.

"I know my religion better than you, that's certain!"

A lugubrious bell sounded, and the mournful voice of the call-boy was
heard in the corridors: