LITMIR.BIZ

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race of vipers!” continued my lord of Vez, “do you wish me to go on?”

      “Yes, indeed!” said the little man, forgetting the scantiness of his attire in the interest excited in him by the Baron’s tale.

      “ ‘But Madame,’ I said to my friend Madame Magloire, ‘How could you tell that he had the audacity to love you?’ ”

      “Yes,” put in the Bailiff, “how did she find it out? I never noticed anything myself.”

      “You would have been aware of it, my dear friend, if only you had looked under the table; but, fond of your dinner as you are, you were not likely to be looking at the dishes on the table and underneath it at the same time.”

      “The truth is, my lord, we had the most perfect little supper! just you think now—cutlets of young wild-boar....”

      “Very well,” said the Baron, “now you are going to tell me about your supper, instead of listening to the end of my tale, a tale which concerns the life and honour of your wife!”

      “True, true, my poor Suzanne! My lord, help me to open her hands, that I may slap them on the palms.”

      The Lord of Vez gave all the assistance in his power to Monsieur Magloire, and by dint of their united efforts they forced open Madame Magloire’s hands.

      The good man, now easier in his mind, began slapping his wife’s palms with his chubby little hands, all the while giving his attention to the remainder of the Baron’s interesting and veracious story.

      “Where had I got to?” he asked.

      “You had got just to where my poor Suzanne, whom one may indeed call ‘the chaste Suzanna....’ ”

      “Yes, you may well say that!” interrupted the lord of Vez.

      “Indeed, I do! You had just got to where my poor Suzanne began to be aware....”

      “Ah, yes—that your guest like Paris of old was wishing to make another Menelaus of you; well, then she rose from table.... You remember that she did so?”

      “No.... I was perhaps a little—just a little—overcome.”

      “Quite so! Well then she rose from table, and said it was time to retire.”

      “The truth is, that the last hour I heard strike was eleven,” said the jovial Bailiff.

      “Then the party broke up.”

      “I don’t think I left the table,” said the Bailiff.

      “No, but Madame Magloire and your guest did. She told him which was his room, and Perrine showed him to it; after which, kind and faithful wife as she is, Madame Magloire tucked you into bed, and went into her own room.”

      “Dear little Suzanne!” said the bailiff in a voice of emotion.

      “And it was then, when she found herself in her room, and all alone, that she got frightened; she went to the window and opened it; the wind, blowing into the room, put out her candle. You know what it is to have a sudden panic come over you, do you not?”

      “Oh! yes,” replied the Bailiff naïvely, “I am very timid myself.”

      “After that she was seized with panic, and not daring to wake you, for fear any harm should come to you, she called to the first horseman she saw go by—and luckily, that horseman was myself.”

      “It was indeed fortunate, my lord.”

      “Was it not?... I ran, I made myself known.”

      “ ‘Come up, my lord, come up,’ she cried. ‘Come up quickly—I am sure there is a man in my room.’ ”

      “Dear! dear!...” said the bailiff, “you must indeed have felt terribly frightened.”

      “Not at all! I thought it was only losing time to stop and ring; I gave my horse to l’Eveillé, I stood up on the saddle, climbed from that to the balcony, and, so that the man who was in the room might not escape, I shut the window. It was just at that moment that Madame Magloire, hearing the sound of your door opening, and overcome by such a succession of painful feelings, fell fainting into my arms.”

      “Ah! my lord!” said the Bailiff, “how frightful all this is that you tell me.”

      “And be sure, my dear friend, that I have rather softened than added to its terror; anyhow, you will hear what Madame Magloire has to tell you when she comes to....”

      “See, my lord, she is beginning to move.”

      “That’s right! burn a feather under her nose.”

      “A feather?”

      “Yes, it is a sovereign anti-spasmodic; burn a feather under her nose, and she will revive instantly.”

      “But where shall I find a feather?” asked the bailiff.

      “Here! take this, the feather round my hat.” And the lord of Vez broke off a bit of the ostrich feather which ornamented his hat, gave it to Monsieur Magloire, who lighted it at the candle and held it smoking under his wife’s nose.

      The remedy was a sovereign one, as the Baron had said; the effect of it was instantaneous; Madame Magloire sneezed.

      “Ah!” cried the bailiff delightedly, “now she is coming to! my wife! my dear wife! my dear little wife!”

      Madame Magloire gave a sigh.

      “My lord! my lord!” cried the bailiff, “she is saved! saved!”

      Madame Magloire opened her eyes, looked first at the Bailiff and then at the Baron, with a bewildered gaze, and then finally fixing them on the Bailiff:

      “Magloire! dear Magloire!” she said, “is it really you? Oh! how glad I am to see you again after the bad dream I have had!”

      “Well!” muttered Thibault, “she is a brazen-faced huzzy, if you like! if I do not get all that I want from the ladies I run after, they, at least, afford me some valuable object lessons by the way!”

      “Alas! my beautiful Suzanne,” said the Bailiff, “it is no bad dream you have had, but, as it seems, a hideous reality.”

      “Ah! I remember now,” responded Madame Magloire. Then, as if noticing for the first time that the lord of Vez was there:

      “Ah! my lord,” she continued, “I hope you have repeated nothing to my husband of all those foolish things I told you?”

      “And why not, dear lady?” asked the Baron.

      “Because an honest woman knows how to protect herself, and has no need to keep on telling her husband a lot of nonsense like that.”

      “On the contrary, Madame,” replied the Baron, “I have told my friend everything.”

      “Do you mean that you have told him that during the whole of supper time that man was fondling my knee under the table?”

      “I told him that, certainly.”

      “Oh! the wretch!” exclaimed the Bailiff.

      “And that when I stooped to pick up my table napkin, it was not that, but his hand, that I came across.”

      “I have hidden nothing from my friend Magloire.”

      “Oh! the ruffian!” cried the Bailiff.

      “And that Monsieur Magloire having a passing giddiness which made him shut his eyes while at table, his guest took the opportunity to kiss me against my will?”

      “I thought it was right for a husband to know everything.”

      “Oh! the knave!” cried the Bailiff.

      “And did you even go so far as to tell him that having come into my room, and the wind having blown out the candle, I fancied I saw the window curtains move, which made

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