a mocking air,

happy to see me suffer, happy above all to see a man reduced to her own level, begging servilely to her.

" For just one minute, Celestine. I'll just look at her and go away 1 "

" No, no, Monsieur ! She'll scold me ! "

The ringing of a bell was heard. I heard the noise of it quicken.

" You see, Monsieur, she is calling me ! "

" Well, now ! Celestine, tell her that if she does not come to my house by six o'clock, if she does not write to me by six o'clock. . . tell her that I am going to kill myself ! Six o'clock, Celestine 1 Don't forget now. . . tell her that I am going to kill myself ! "

" All right, Monsieur ! "

The door was shut behind me with the clang of a chained lock.

It occurred to me to see Gabrielle Bernier, to tell her my troubles, to ask her advice, and use her offices for a reconciliation with Juliette. Gabrielle was finishing breakfast with a friend of hers, a short, skinny woman of dark complexion, with a pointed chin like a mouse which when speaking seemed always to be nibbling at something. In a morning robe of white silk, soiled and rumpled, her hair kept from falling by a comb stuck across it on top of her head, her elbows resting on the table, Gabrielle was smoking a cigarette and sipping chartreuse from a glass.

" Why, Jean ! And so you have come back? "

She showed me into her dressing room which was very untidy. At the very first words which I spoke of Juliette, she exclaimed :

"Why. . . don't you know? We have not been on speaking terms for two months since the time she beat me out of a consul, my dear, an American Consul, who paid me five thousand a month ! Yes, she beat