You would have an audience of two, with your assistant, not that I mean to cast the slightest suspicion upon our corps of janitors, whom I believe to be above suspicion.” “You know nothing about them,” the Baron retorted in a harsh and cutting tone. “Besides you are wrong in thinking that so few people are interested in the subject. It is just the opposite.” And without stopping to consider the incompatibility between the invariable trend of his own conversation and the reproach which he was about to heap upon other people: “It is, on the contrary, most alarming,” said the Baron, with a scandalised and contrite air, “people are talking about nothing else. It is a scandal, but I am not exaggerating, my dear fellow! It appears that, the day before yesterday, at the Duchesse d’Agen’s, they talked about nothing else for two hours on end; you can imagine, if women have taken to discussing that sort of thing, it is a positive scandal! What is vilest of all is that they get their information,” he went on with an extraordinary fire and emphasis, “from pests, regular harlots like young Châtellerault, who has the worst reputation in the world, who tell them stories about other men.