“Poor woman!” she said.  “She must have suffered, indeed.”

Sulpice did not reply.

“Do you know that if that were my case, I could never forgive you?”

“You are mad!  What are you thinking of?”

“Oh! it is true, the idea that you could touch another woman, that you could kiss her as you kiss me, that would make me more than angry, horrified and disgusted.  I tell you, I would never forgive you.”

“Who puts all this stuff in your head?  Come, I will do as I used to do,” said Vaudrey.  “Not another paper shall enter your house!  What an idea, to read the Gazette des Tribunaux!”

“It is because this name:  Vauthier, somewhat resembles your own that I was induced to read it.  And then this very mournful title:  Separation de corps.  I would prefer divorce myself.  A complete divorce that severs the past like a knife-cut.”

“But what an idea!” repeated Sulpice, who was somewhat uneasy.

Vaudrey was delighted to hear Guy announced in the midst of this discussion.  They would then change the topic.  But Adrienne, who was much affected by her reading, returned to the same subject in an obstinate sort of way and Lissac commenced to laugh.

“What a joke!  To speak of divorce between you two!  Never fear, madame, your husband will never present to the Chamber a law in favor of divorce.”

“Who knows?” Sulpice answered.  “I am in favor of divorce myself, yes, absolutely.”

“And I cannot understand, for my part, how a woman can belong to two living men,” said Adrienne.

“You reason for yourself.  But the unhappy women who suffer—­and the unhappy men—­The existing law, in fact, seeing that it admits separation, permits divorce, but more cruel, heartrending, and unjust.  Divorce without freedom.  Divorce that continues the chain.”

“Sulpice is right, madame, and sooner or later, we shall certainly arrive at that frightful divorce.”

“After all, what does it matter to me?” Adrienne replied.

She threw the accursed Gazette des Tribunaux into the waste basket with its Suit of Vauthier vs.  Vauthier.  “We are not interested, neither my husband nor I; he loves me and I love him.  I am as sure of him as he is sure of me.  He may demand all the laws that are possible:  it would not be for selfish interest, for he would not profit by them.”

“Never!” said Sulpice with a laugh, delighted to be released from the magnetic influence of Adrienne’s strange excitement.

There was, however, a somewhat false ring in this laugh.  Face to face with the avowed trustfulness of his wife, Sulpice experienced a slight pricking of conscience.  He thought of Marianne.  His passion increased tenfold, but this very increase of affection made him afraid.  He hastened to find himself again at Rue Prony.  The Hotel Beauvau depressed him.  It became more than ever a prison.  How gladly he escaped from it!