I insist upon Rose’s domestic virtues.
"You will not easily replace her, Captain."
Decidedly, he is not touched at all. One would say even, from looking at his eyes that have suddenly become brighter and from watching his movements, now more alert, that he has been relieved from a great weight.
"Bah!" says he, after a short silence, "everything can be replaced."
This resignation astonishes me, and even scandalizes me a little. To amuse myself, I try to make him understand all he has lost in losing Rose.
"She knew so well your habits, your tastes, your manias! She was so devoted to you!"
"Well, if she had not been, that would have been the last straw," he growled.
And, making a gesture by which he seems to put aside all sorts of objections, he goes on:
"Besides, was she so devoted to me? Oh! I may as well tell you the truth. I had had enough of Rose. Yes, indeed! After we took a little boy to help us, she attended to nothing in the house, and everything went badly, very badly. I could not even have an egg boiled to my taste. And the scenes that went on, from morning to night, apropos of nothing. If I spent ten sous, there were cries and reproaches. And, when J talked with you, as I am doing now,—well, there was a row, indeed; for she was jealous, jealous. Oh!no. She went
