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 beautiful souls in all their nakedness, and at the thought of the humiliation that they would feel in my presence afterward. They seemed to have forgotten that I was there. Desiring to see how the scene would end, I kept perfectly still, and made myself as small as possible.

Monsieur, who had been holding in for a long time, now got angry in his turn. He made the fashion journal into a big ball, and flung it with all his might against the dressing-table; and he cried:

"Zut! Flûte! This is really getting too tiresome! It is always the same thing. One cannot say anything or do anything without being received like a dog. And always brutalities and coarse language. I have enough of this life; I have had enough of these fishwife's manners. And shall I tell you the truth? Your corset,—well, your corset is vile. It is a prostitute's corset."

"Wretch!"

With bloodshot eye, foaming mouth, and clenched and threatening fist, she advanced toward Monsieur. And such was her rage that the words came from her mouth in a sort of hoarse belching.

"Wretch!" she roared again. "And it is you who dare to speak to me in this way,—you? Oh! but it is unheard of. When I picked him up in the mud, this poverty-stricken fine gentleman, covered with dirty debts, posted at his club,—when I saved