The antithesis between the relative calm he felt within him and his rival's despair was so flattering to the Baron's vanity that for a moment he was absolutely happy. He caught himself making use of his customary expression, one he had inherited from his father, a clever speculator, who had again had it from his mother, a fine Normandy woman who had linked her fortunes with those of the first Baron Desforges, a Prefect under the _grand empereur_, 'Gumption! Why should I be jealous? In what has Suzanne deceived me? Did I expect her to love me with a love such as this fool of a poet no doubt dreamt of? What could a man of more than fifty ask of her? To be kind and amiable? That she has been. To afford me an opportunity of spending my evenings agreeably? She has done so. Well, what then? She has met a strapping youth, a bit wild, with a fresh-looking complexion, and a fine pair of lips. As she couldn't very well ask me to get him for her, she has indulged in a little luxury on her own account. But, of the two of us, I should say that he is the cuckold!' This reflection, so purely Gallic in form, occurred to him just as he reached the door of his club. The plain language in which it had found expression relieved him for a moment. 'That's all very well,' he thought; 'but what would Crucé say?' The adroit collector had once sold him a worthless daub at an exorbitant figure, and Desforges had ever since entertained for him that mixture of respect and resentment felt by very clever men for those who have duped them well. He drew a picture of the small club-room and the cunning Crucé relating Suzanne's adventure with René to two or three of his most envious colleagues. The idea was so hateful to the Baron that it stopped him from entering the club, and he walked away in the direction of the Champs-Elysées trying to shake off its influence. 'Bah! Neither Crucé nor the others will know anything of it. It's lucky after all that she didn't hit upon any of these men about town.' He threw a glance at the club windows that looked out upon the Place de la Concorde, and which were all lit up. 'Instead of that she has taken some one who is not in Society, whom I never meet, and whom she has neither patronised nor presented. I must do her the justice to admit that she has been very considerate. Her trepidation, too, just now, was entirely on my account. Poor little woman!'