“Ah, well! you will not see me there,” she replied in a tone which froze my heart, it was so ferocious, “and I have an idea that this function will not take place.” Then with rising anger she said: “Now, see how innocent I am still! When the fool of a husband asked me that, and I said 'yes,’ seeing that Jacques displayed no emotion, it seemed to me impossible that this woman could really be his mistress. I did not believe it of her, nor did I believe that he was her lover. I knew she was a famous coquette, and you remember how I judged him? But this was on her part such insolent audacity, and on his shameful cowardice! No. Had you come yourself, even this morning, to tell me that she was his mistress, I should not have believed it.” She was so agonized at what she was preparing to tell that she had to stop again. Her hands, which had let go of me again, trembled and her eyes closed from her excessive suffering. “And now?” I said to her. “Now?” She burst into a nervous laugh. “Now I know of what they are capable, he in particular. She is a woman of the world who has lovers. But for him to have done what he has done! Oh, the wretch, the wicked monster! I am going mad as I talk to you. But listen, listen,” she repeated in a frenzy, as if she feared I should interrupt her story. “To-day at two o’clock there was to have been a rehearsal of the new comedy by Dorsenne at the theatre. He is altering an act and the rehearsal was countermanded. I did not hear of it till I got to the theatre. For that reason I found myself about two o’clock in the Rue de la Chausée d’Antin with the afternoon before me. I had one or two calls to make in the neighbourhood. I started, and then some clumsy person trod on my skirt, tearing a flounce almost off. Look.” She showed me that a large piece of the bottom of her skirt was torn. “It happened at the top of the Rue de Clichy near the Rue Nouvelle.” She had looked at me as she pronounced and emphasized these last few words, as if they ought to awaken in me an association of ideas. She saw that I made no sign. A look of astonishment passed over her face and she continued—