Then she, who had not been asleep at all, looking at this unkempt man, with red eyes and swollen lips, replied in the haughty tone of voice in which she occasionally spoke to her husband: "It is nothing; it is only a cock crowing. Go and sleep again, Monsieur, it has nothing to do with you." JULOT'S OPINION The Duchess Huguette de Lionzac was very much infatuated with herself, but then she had a perfect right to be, and who, in her place, would not have shown a spice of conceit? There was no success which she had wished for, that she had not attained. She had received a medal for sculpture at the _Salon_, and at the _Exhibition of Excessives_ she had shown a water-color which looked eccentric, even there. She had published a collection of poems which was crowned by the French Academy, and a small volume of _Rhythmic Prose_ of which the _Revue de lemain_ said, "That it showed the most subtle and evanescent performance of those fugitive pieces which was sure to descend to posterity," and when she acted in private theatricals, some exclaimed: "It is better than the _Comedie Francaise_," while others, who were more refined, went so far as to utter the supreme praise: "Better than the _Theatre Libre_." At one time, there had been a report, which had been propagated by the newspapers, that she was going to come out at the _Opera Comique_, in a part that had been written especially for her extraordinary voice, for it appeared that Massenet would not hear of anybody else for the part. She was the circus-rider, Miss Edith, who, under that assumed name gave that unique and never-to-be-forgotten exhibition of horsemanship, and you remember what cheers there were, and what quantities of flowers covered the arena! And you must not forget that this was before a _paying public_! Then, it was notorious that she had carried off the lovers of several celebrated courtesans, which was not one of the smallest of her triumphs, for she had chosen as her rivals some of those terrible and hitherto unconquered women, of whom it was said: "Oh! When she has got hold of a man, she does not let him go again. She has some secrets that attach them to her." There was, therefore, nothing surprising in the fact that the Duchess Huguette should have been so proud of so many victories, and in such various sports; but now, for the first time, a doubt had entered her mind. In turning over the _Notules Psychologiques_[3] of her favorite novel-writer, she had just read these two sentences which disturbed her: [Footnote 3: Psychological Notes.] "If anyone wishes to excel in an art, he must have gained a living by it." "What pleases us in a woman of the world who gives herself up to debauchery, is the contrast between what she is, and what she would like to be."