This was the last nail which clinched the fetters of that happy
galley-slave, for the speech of course reached the ears for which it
was intended.

The fourth phase had begun, that of /habit/, the final victory in
these plans of campaign, which make the women of this class say of a
man, "I hold him!" Rochefide, who had just bought the little hotel in
the name of Mademoiselle Josephine Schiltz (a trifle of eighty
thousand francs), had reached, at the moment the Duchesse de Grandlieu
was forming plans about him, the stage of deriving vanity from his
mistress (whom he now called Ninon II.), by vaunting her scrupulous
honesty, her excellent manners, her education, and her wit. He had
merged his own defects, merits, tastes, and pleasures in Madame
Schontz, and he found himself at this period of his life, either from
lassitude, indifference, or philosophy, a man unable to change, who
clings to wife or mistress.

We may understand the position won in five years by Madame Schontz
from the fact that presentation at her house had to be proposed some
time before it was granted. She refused to receive dull rich people
and smirched people; and only departed from this rule in favor of
certain great names of the aristocracy.

"They," she said, "have a right to be stupid because they are
well-bred."

She possessed ostensibly the three hundred thousand francs which
Rochefide had given her, and which a certain good fellow, a broker
named Gobenheim (the only man of that class admitted to her house)