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Rh too innocent, for her not too tell her husband, in spite of her resolutions not to do so, about the offer she had made to Julien, and the manner in which she had been rebuffed.

"How on earth," answered M. de Rênal, keenly piqued, "could you put up with a refusal on the part of a servant,"—and, when Madame de Rênal protested against the word "Servant," "I am using, madam, the words of the late Prince of Condé, when he presented his Chamberlains to his new wife. 'All these people' he said 'are servants.' I have also read you this passage from the Memoirs of Besenval, a book which is indispensable on all questions of etiquette. 'Every person, not a gentleman, who lives in your house and receives a salary is your servant.' I'll go and say a few words to M. Julien and give him a hundred francs."

"Oh, my dear," said Madame De Rênal trembling, "I hope you won't do it before the servants!"

"Yes, they might be jealous and rightly so," said her husband as he took his leave, thinking of the greatness of the sum.

Madame de Rênal fell on a chair almost fainting in her anguish. He is going to humiliate Julien, and it is my fault! She felt an abhorrence for her husband and hid her face in her hands. She resolved that henceforth she would never make any more confidences.

When she saw Julien again she was trembling all over. Her chest was so cramped that she could not succeed in pronouncing a single word. In her embarrassment she took his hands and pressed them.

"Well, my friend," she said to him at last, "are you satisfied with my husband?"

"How could I be otherwise," answered Julien, with a bitter smile, "he has given me a hundred francs."

Madame de Rênal looked at him doubtfully.

"Give me your arm," she said at last, with a courageous intonation that Julien had not heard before.

She dared to go as far as the shop of the bookseller of Verrieres, in spite of his awful reputation for Liberalism. In the shop she chose ten louis worth of books for a present for her sons. But these books were those which she knew Julien was wanting. She insisted on each child writing his name then