"It is too stupid, indeed!" said he. "One should not be as stupid as that!" "And that is all you find to say to me?" "What else do you expect me to say to you? I say that it is stupid. There is nothing else to say." "And you? What are you going to do?" He looked at me obliquely. There was a sneer on his lips. Ah! how ugly was his look, in that moment of distress; how ugly and hideous was his mouth! "I?" said he, pretending not to understand that, in this question, there were prayers for him. "Yes, you. I asked you what you were going to do." "Nothing. I have nothing to do. I am going to continue. Why, you are crazy, my girl. You do not expect...." I burst out: "You are going to have the courage to remain in a house from which I am driven out?" He rose, relighted his cigarette, and said, icily: "Oh! no scene, you know. I am not your husband. You have seen fit to commit a stupidity. I am not responsible for it. What do you expect? You must take the consequences. Life is life." I became indignant. "Then you are going to drop me? You are a wretch, a scoundrel, like the others, do you know it?" William smiled. He was really a superior man. "Oh! don't say useless things. I have made you no promises. Nor have you made me any. People meet; that is well. They part; that is well, too. Life is life." And he added, sententiously: "You see, Célestine, in life there must be conduct; there must be what I call administration. You have no conduct; you have no administration. You allow yourself to be carried away by your nerves. In our business nerves are a very bad thing. Remember this well: life is life." I think I should have thrown myself upon him and torn his face, his emotionless and cowardly face of a flunky, with furious digs of my nails, if tears had not suddenly come to soften and relax my overstrained nerves. My wrath fell, and I begged: "Oh! William! William! my little William! my dear little William! how unhappy I am!" William tried to revive my drooping spirits a little. I must say that he made use of all his powers of persuasion and all his philosophy. During the day he generously overwhelmed me with lofty thoughts, with grave and consoling aphorisms, in which these words, provoking and soothing at the same time, continually recurred: "Life is life." I must do him justice. This last day he was charming, though a little too solemn, and he did things very well. In the evening, after dinner, he put my trunks on a cab, and escorted me to a lodging-house where he was known, paying a week's rent in advance out of his own pocket, and recommending the proprietor to take good care of me. But he could not stay himself, for he had an appointment with Edgar! "You understand, of course, that I cannot disappoint Edgar. And perhaps, too, he might know of a place for you. A place gotten through Edgar,--ah! that would be astonishing." On leaving me, he said: