"Perhaps you are going to scold me now?"
"Why should I?" he inquired.
"Well, because—M. Maze came to see me a little while ago, and, as I do not wish to be gossiped about on his account, I begged him never to come when you were not at home. He seemed a little hurt."
Lesable, very much surprised, demanded:
"Very well, what did he say to that?"
"Oh! he did not say much, but it did not please me all the same, and then I asked him to cease his visits entirely. You know very well that it is you and papa who brought him here—I was not consulted at all about it—and I feared you would be displeased because I had dismissed him."
A grateful joy beamed from the face of her husband.
"You did right, perfectly right, and I even thank you for it."
She went on, in order to establish the understanding between the two men, which she had arranged in advance: "At the office you must conduct yourself as though nothing had happened, and speak to him as you have been in the habit of doing; but he is not to come here any more."
Taking his wife tenderly in his arms, Lesable impressed long kisses on her eyelids and on her cheeks. "You are an angel! You are an angel!" he repeated, and he felt pressing against his stomach the already lusty child.