“Come, come, Celestine,” said Rabourdin; “mix up ideas as much as you please, and make fun of them,—­I’m accustomed to that; but don’t criticise a work of which you know nothing as yet.”

“Do I need,” she asked, “to know a scheme the essence of which is to govern France with a civil service of six thousand men instead of twenty thousand?  My dear friend, even allowing it were the plan of a man of genius, a king of France who attempted to carry it out would get himself dethroned.  You can keep down a feudal aristocracy by levelling a few heads, but you can’t subdue a hydra with thousands.  And is it with the present ministers—­between ourselves, a wretched crew—­that you expect to carry out your reform?  No, no; change the monetary system if you will, but do not meddle with men, with little men; they cry out too much, whereas gold is dumb.”

“But, Celestine, if you will talk, and put wit before argument, we shall never understand each other.”

“Understand!  I understand what that paper, in which you have analyzed the capacities of the men in office, will lead to,” she replied, paying no attention to what her husband said.  “Good heavens! you have sharpened the axe to cut off your own head.  Holy Virgin! why didn’t you consult me?  I could have at least prevented you from committing anything to writing, or, at any rate, if you insisted on putting it to paper, I would have written it down myself, and it should never have left this house.  Good God! to think that he never told me!  That’s what men are! capable of sleeping with the wife of their bosom for seven years, and keeping a secret from her!  Hiding their thoughts from a poor woman for seven years!—­doubting her devotion!”

“But,” cried Rabourdin, provoked, “for eleven years and more I have been unable to discuss anything with you because you insist on cutting me short and substituting your ideas for mine.  You know nothing at all about my scheme.”

“Nothing!  I know all.”

“Then tell it to me!” cried Rabourdin, angry for the first time since his marriage.

“There! it is half-past six o’clock; finish shaving and dress at once,” she cried hastily, after the fashion of women when pressed on a point they are not ready to talk of.  “I must go; we’ll adjourn the discussion, for I don’t want to be nervous on a reception-day.  Good heavens! the poor soul!” she thought, as she left the room, “it is hard to be in labor for seven years and bring forth a dead child!  And not trust his wife!”

She went back into the room.

“If you had listened to me you would never had interceded to keep your chief clerk; he stole that abominable paper, and has, no doubt, kept a fac-simile of it.  Adieu, man of genius!”

Then she noticed the almost tragic expression of her husband’s grief; she felt she had gone too far, and ran to him, seized him just as he was, all lathered with soap-suds, and kissed him tenderly.