"Did you suppose by any chance, madame, that I intended to ask you for anything, or to borrow anything of you? I hoped that you had lived with me long enough to know me. I have spent a devilish lot of money on women; they have led me into all sorts of folly, but nothing base. I have ruined myself for them, and I had a right to do it. I have made love to them much, loved them sometimes, deceived them often; but thank God! I have never accepted anything from them; I am entitled to say to them just what I think, and I avail myself of that right on occasion.--My respects, my affectionate friend!" With these words, Roncherolle bowed to Madame de Grangeville with a mocking expression, and left her apartment, saying to himself: "Ah! these women whose lives have been nothing but coquetry--when you search their hearts, what a barren soil you find! Sow benefactions there and you never reap anything but ingratitude." As for Madame de Grangeville, as soon as her former lover had left her, she called her maid and said: "If by any chance that gentleman should come again to see me, Lizida, I shall not be at home to him! The idea! a ruined man, who dresses shabbily, who drags one leg, and who has nothing but disagreeable things to say!" "Madame is quite right. That is a good sort of man to keep out." XXXVII THE CONCIERGE-NURSE In a hasty, violent, nervous disposition, wrath is quick to come; it bursts out violently, but it does not last long; the heart that feels the most profoundly the wounds that it receives, is also the most sensitive to the tears that it sees shed, and it very speedily repents of the pain it has inflicted. The Comte de Brevanne, who had only a few hours before acquired the certainty that his wife had had a child by Roncherolle, had been unable to control his wrath and his jealousy when their child appeared before him; at the first blush, he had imagined that it was a fresh insult, an additional affront purposely put upon him. All his sufferings, all his anguish had returned to his mind and to his heart, and we have seen how, as a result of all these circumstances, he had received poor Violette. But when a half hour had passed after the young girl's departure, the count, who had remained alone in his study, had had time to grow calm; moreover, the storm that was in the air had broken, the rain was falling in torrents; at such times nervous people always feel relieved, they breathe more freely, their brain becomes clearer and their irritation falls with the rain. Brevanne looked about him, passed his hand over his forehead, and said to himself: