They lived in the most cordial intimacy, having understood and appreciated each other from the first.  They had no secrets from one another and even confided to each other their most secret thoughts.  Leuillet loved his wife now with a quiet and trustful affection; he loved her as a tender, devoted companion who is an equal and a confidante.  But there lingered in his mind a strange and inexplicable bitterness towards the defunct Souris, who had first been the husband of this woman, who had had the flower of her youth and of her soul, and had even robbed her of some of her poetry.  The memory of the dead husband marred the happiness of the living husband, and this posthumous jealousy tormented his heart by day and by night.

The consequence was he talked incessantly of Souris, asked about a thousand personal and secret minutia, wanted to know all about his habits and his person.  And he sneered at him even in his grave, recalling with self-satisfaction his whims, ridiculing his absurdities, dwelling on his faults.

He would call to his wife all over the house: 

“Hallo, Mathilde!”

“Here I am, dear.”

“Come here a moment.”

She would come, always smiling, knowing well that he would say something about Souris and ready to flatter her new husband’s inoffensive mania.

“Tell me, do you remember one day how Souris insisted on explaining to me that little men always commanded more affection than big men?”

And he made some remarks that were disparaging to the deceased, who was a small man, and decidedly flattering to himself, Leuillet, who was a tall man.

Mme. Leuillet allowed him to think he was right, quite right, and she laughed heartily, gently ridiculing her former husband for the sake of pleasing the present one, who always ended by saying: 

“All the same, what a ninny that Souris was!”

They were happy, quite happy, and Leuillet never ceased to show his devotion to his wife.

One night, however, as they lay awake, Leuillet said as he kissed his wife: 

“See here, dearie.”

“Well?”

“Was Souris—­I don’t exactly know how to say it—­was Souris very loving?”

She gave him a kiss for reply and murmured “Not as loving as you are, mon chat.”

He was flattered in his self-love and continued: 

“He must have been—­a ninny—­was he not?”

She did not reply.  She only smiled slyly and hid her face in her husband’s neck.

“He must have been a ninny and not—­not—­not smart?”

She shook her head slightly to imply, “No—­not at all smart.”

He continued: 

“He must have been an awful nuisance, eh?”

This time she was frank and replied: 

“Oh yes!”

He kissed her again for this avowal and said: 

“What a brute he was!  You were not happy with him?”

“No,” she replied.  “It was not always pleasant.”