"Ah, you do love me! I fear nothing!--But no more Marneffe. Never go plunging into such horrible bogs." "I swear to you, my dear Hortense, that I will go there no more, excepting to redeem my note of hand." She pouted at this, but only as a loving woman sulks to get something for it. Wenceslas, tired out with such a morning's work, went off to his studio to make a clay sketch of the _Samson and Delilah_, for which he had the drawings in his pocket. Hortense, penitent for her little temper, and fancying that her husband was annoyed with her, went to the studio just as the sculptor had finished handling the clay with the impetuosity that spurs an artist when the mood is on him. On seeing his wife, Wenceslas hastily threw the wet wrapper over the group, and putting both arms round her, he said: "We were not really angry, were we, my pretty puss?" Hortense had caught sight of the group, had seen the linen thrown over it, and had said nothing; but as she was leaving, she took off the rag, looked at the model, and asked: "What is that?" "A group for which I had just had an idea." "And why did you hide it?" "I did not mean you to see it till it was finished." "The woman is very pretty," said Hortense. And a thousand suspicions cropped up in her mind, as, in India, tall, rank plants spring up in a night-time. By the end of three weeks, Madame Marneffe was intensely irritated by Hortense. Women of that stamp have a pride of their own; they insist that men shall kiss the devil's hoof; they have no forgiveness for the virtue that does not quail before their dominion, or that even holds its own against them. Now, in all that time Wenceslas had not paid one visit in the Rue Vanneau, not even that which politeness required to a woman who had sat for Delilah. Whenever Lisbeth called on the Steinbocks, there had been nobody at home. Monsieur and madame lived in the studio. Lisbeth, following the turtle doves to their nest at le Gros-Caillou, found Wenceslas hard at work, and was informed by the cook that madame never left monsieur's side. Wenceslas was a slave to the autocracy of love. So now Valerie, on her own account, took part with Lisbeth in her hatred of Hortense. Women cling to a lover that another woman is fighting for, just as much as men do to women round whom many coxcombs are buzzing. Thus any reflections _a propos_ to Madame Marneffe are equally applicable to any lady-killing rake; he is, in fact, a sort of male courtesan. Valerie's last fancy was a madness; above all, she was bent on getting her group; she was even thinking of going one morning to the studio to see Wenceslas, when a serious incident arose of the kind which, to a woman of that class, may be called the spoil of war. This is how Valerie announced this wholly personal event. She was breakfasting with Lisbeth and her husband. "I say, Marneffe, what would you say to being a second time a father?" "You don't mean it--a baby?--Oh, let me kiss you!"