“You are philosophical!” said the lover, with a forced smile.

“My philosophy is very simple.  I respect my wife too much to suspect her, and I love her too much to annoy her in advance with an imaginary trouble.  If this trouble should come, and I were sure of it, it would be time enough to worry myself about it.  Besides, it would be an affair soon settled.”

“What affair?” asked Marillac, slackening his pace in order to join in the conversation.

“A foolish affair, my friend, which does not concern you, Monsieur de Gerfaut, nor myself any longer, I hope; although I belong to the class exposed to danger.  We were speaking of conjugal troubles.”

The artist threw a glance at his friend which signified:  “What the deuce made you take it into your head to start up this hare?”

“There are many things to be said on this subject,” said he, in a sententious tone, thinking that his intervention might be useful in getting his friend out of the awkward position in which he found himself, “an infinite number of things may be said; books without number have been written upon this subject.  Every one has his own system and plan of conduct as to the way of looking at and acting upon it.”

“And what would be yours, you consummate villain?” asked Christian; “would you be as cruel a husband as you are an immoral bachelor?  That usually happens; the bolder a poacher one has been, the more intractable a gamekeeper one becomes.  What would be your system?”

“Hum! hum! you are mistaken, Bergenheim; my boyish love adventures have disposed me to indulgence.  ‘Debilis caro’, you know!  Shakespeare has translated it, ‘Frailty, thy name is woman!’”

“I am a little rusty in my; Latin and I never knew a word of English.  What does that mean?”

“Upon my word, it means, if I were married and my wife deceived me, I should resign myself to it like a gentleman, considering the fragility of this enchanting sex.”

“Mere boy’s talk, my friend!  And you, Gerfaut?”

“I must admit,” replied the latter, a little embarrassed, “that I have never given the subject very much thought.  However, I believe in the virtue of women.”

“That is all very well, but in case of misfortune what would you do?”

“I think I should say with Lanoue:  ’Sensation is for the fop, complaints for the fool, an honest man who is deceived goes away and says nothing.’”

“I partly agree with Lanoue; only I should make a little variation—­instead of goes away should say avenges himself.”

Marillac threw at his friend a second glance full of meaning.

“Per Bacco!” said he, “are you a Venetian or a Castilian husband?”

“Eh!” replied Bergenheim, “I suppose that without being either, I should kill my wife, the other man, and then myself, without even crying, ‘Beware!’ Here!  Brichou! pay attention; Tambeau is separated from the rest.”