"Not generally," I replied, endeavouring to make my peace; but all my
complaisance was in vain--she was jealous of my intimacy with the
Duchesse de Perpignan, and glad of any excuse to vent her pique. I am
just the sort of man to bear, but never to forgive a woman's ill temper,
viz.--it makes no impression on me at the time, but leaves a sore
recollection of something disagreeable, which I internally resolve never
again to experience. Madame D'Anville was going to the Luxembourg; and my
only chance of soothing her anger was to accompany her.

Down stairs, therefore, we went, and drove to the Luxembourg; I gave
Bedos, before my departure, various little commissions, and told him he
need not be at home till the evening. Long before the expiration of an
hour, Madame D'Anville's ill humour had given me an excuse for affecting
it myself. Tired to death of her, and panting for release, I took a high
tone--complained of her ill temper, and her want of love--spoke rapidly--
waited for no reply, and leaving her at the Luxembourg, proceeded
forthwith to Galignani's, like a man just delivered from a strait
waistcoat.

Leave me now, for a few minutes, in the reading-room at Galignani's, and
return to the mistress of the hotel, whom I had so unceremoniously thrust
out of my salon. The passage into which she had been put communicated by
one door with my rooms, and by another with the staircase. Now, it had so
happened, that Bedos was in the habit of locking the latter door, and
keeping the key; the other egress, it will be remembered, I myself had
secured; so that the unfortunate mistress of the hotel was no sooner
turned into this passage than she found herself in a sort of dungeon, ten
feet by five, and surrounded, like Eve in Paradise, by a whole creation--
not of birds, beasts, and fishes, but of brooms, brushes, unclean linen,
and a wood-basket. What she was to do in this dilemma was utterly