“The Spaniard found the flaw in Max’s armor,” said Baruch to his cousin Francois, as they turned into Monsieur Hochon’s house and watched their comrade entering his own door.

While Max was thus employed, Flore, in spite of her friend’s advice, was unable to restrain her wrath; and without knowing whether she would help or hinder Max’s plans, she burst forth upon the poor bachelor.  When Jean-Jacques incurred the anger of his mistress, the little attentions and vulgar fondlings which were all his joy were suddenly suppressed.  Flore sent her master, as the children say, into disgrace.  No more tender glances, no more of the caressing little words in various tones with which she decked her conversation,—­“my kitten,” “my old darling,” “my bibi,” “my rat,” etc.  A “you,” cold and sharp and ironically respectful, cut like the blade of a knife through the heart of the miserable old bachelor.  The “you” was a declaration of war.  Instead of helping the poor man with his toilet, handing him what he wanted, forestalling his wishes, looking at him with the sort of admiration which all women know how to express, and which, in some cases, the coarser it is the better it pleases,—­saying, for instance, “You look as fresh as a rose!” or, “What health you have!” “How handsome you are, my old Jean!”—­in short, instead of entertaining him with the lively chatter and broad jokes in which he delighted, Flore left him to dress alone.  If he called her, she answered from the foot of the staircase, “I can’t do everything at once; how can I look after your breakfast and wait upon you up there?  Are not you big enough to dress your own self?”

“Oh, dear! what have I done to displease her?” the old man asked himself that morning, as he got one of these rebuffs after calling for his shaving-water.

“Vedie, take up the hot water,” cried Flore.

“Vedie!” exclaimed the poor man, stupefied with fear of the anger that was crushing him.  “Vedie, what is the matter with Madame this morning?”

Flore Brazier required her master and Vedie and Kouski and Max to call her Madame.

“She seems to have heard something about you which isn’t to your credit,” answered Vedie, assuming an air of deep concern.  “You are doing wrong, monsieur.  I’m only a poor servant-woman, and you may say I have no right to poke my nose into your affairs; but I do say you may search through all the women in the world, like that king in holy Scripture, and you won’t find the equal of Madame.  You ought to kiss the ground she steps on.  Goodness! if you make her unhappy, you’ll only spoil your own life.  There she is, poor thing, with her eyes full of tears.”

Vedie left the poor man utterly cast down; he dropped into an armchair and gazed into vacancy like the melancholy imbecile that he was, and forgot to shave.  These alternations of tenderness and severity worked upon this feeble creature whose only life was through his amorous fibre, the same morbid effect which great changes from tropical heat to arctic cold produce upon the human body.  It was a moral pleurisy, which wore him out like a physical disease.  Flore alone could thus affect him; for to her, and to her alone, he was as good as he was foolish.