'One thing, my beautiful,' he said, 'he has learned one thing from his lifelong acquaintance with your husband: the word _ratiocinate_.

It shines in his vocabulary, like a jewel in a muck-heap.
And, even so, he continually misapplies it.

For you must have observed he uses it as a sort of taunt, in the sense of to _ergotise_, implying, as it were--the poor, dear fellow!--a vein of sophistry.

As for his cruelty to Jean-Marie, it must be forgiven him--it is not his nature, it is the nature of his life.

A man who deals with money, my dear, is a man lost.' With Jean-Marie the process of reconciliation had been somewhat slow.