“‘Well, monsieur, what are we waiting for?’

“But he paid no attention to anything but the woman, and looking at her sharply and suspiciously through his gold-rimmed spectacles, he said to her in a hard voice: 

“‘Your names and surnames?’

“‘Juliette Randal, or as I am generally called, Jujutte Pipehead.’

“‘So you will swear you were not—­’

“She interrupted him eagerly: 

“’I swear it, monsieur, and I know that my little man had nothing to do with it either.  He was only keeping a look-out while the others collared the swag. ...  I will swear that I can account for every moment of my time that night.  Roquin was drunk, and told me everything....  They got five thousand francs from Daddy Zacharias, and of course Roquin had his share, but he did not work with his partners.  It was Minon Menilmuche, whom they call Drink-without-Thirst, who held the gardener’s hands, and who bled him with a blow from his knife.’

“The Commissary let her run on, and when she had finished, he questioned me, as if I had belonged to Jujutte’s band.

“‘Your name, Christian name, and profession?’

“’Marquis Sulpice de Laurier, living on my own private income, at 24, Rue de Galilee.’

“’De Laurier?  Oh, very well....  Excuse me, monsieur, but at Madame de Lauriere’s request, I declare formally before these gentlemen, who will be able to give evidence, that the girl Juliette Randal, whom they call Jujutte Tete-de-Pipe, is your mistress.  You are at liberty to go, Monsieur le Marquis, and you, girl Randal answer my questions.’

“Thus, by the most extraordinary chance, our divorce suit created a sensation which I had certainly never foreseen.  I was obliged to appear in the Assize Court as a witness in the celebrated case of those burglars, when three of them were condemned to death, and to undergo the questioning of the idiotic Presiding Judge, who tried by all means in his power to make me acknowledge that I was Jujutte Tete-de-Pipe’s regular lover; and in consequence, ever since then I have passed as an ardent seeker after novel sensations, and a man who wallows in the lowest depths of the Parisian dunghill.

“I cannot say that this unjust reputation has brought me any pleasant love affairs.  Women are so perverse, so absurd, and so curious!”

THE CONFESSION

Monsieur de Champdelin had no reason to complain of his lot as a married man; nor could he accuse destiny of having played him in a bad turn, as it does so many others, for it would have been difficult to find a more desirable, merrier, prettier little woman, or one who was easier to amuse and to guide than his wife.  To see the large, limpid eyes which illuminated her fair, girlish face, one would think that her mother must have spent whole nights before her birth, in looking dreamily at the stars, and so had become, as it were, impregnated with their magic brightness.  And one did not know which to prefer—­her bright, silky hair, or her slightly restrousse nose, with its vibrating nostrils, her red lips, which looked as alluring as a ripe peach, her beautiful shoulders, her delicate ears, which resembled mother-of-pearl, or her slim waist and rounded figure, which would have delighted and tempted a sculptor.