“Three wives!”

“Yes.  One morning he came to me and said:  ’This must end.  Look, here’s a list—­three splendid matches.’  There were the names, the relations, the dowries—­it was even arranged in the order of the dowries.  I had to yield and consent to an interview with Number One.  That took place at the Salon in the Champs Elysees.  Ah, my boy, Number One—­dry, flat, bony, sallow!”

“Then why did your father—­”

“Why?  Because she was the daughter, and only daughter, of a wealthy manufacturer from Roubaix.  It was splendid!  We each started with a hundred thousand francs income, and that was to be, in the course of time, after realized expectations, a shower of millions!  It made papa supremely happy—­the thought that all his millions in Paris would one day make an enormous heap with all those Roubaix millions.  Millions don’t frighten me, but on the condition that they surround a pretty, a very pretty and stylish woman—­a great deal of style!  That’s my programme.  I want to be able to take my wife to the theatres without having to blush before the box-openers.”

“What do you mean?  Before the box-openers?”

“Why, certainly.  I am known, and I’ve a reputation to keep up.  You see, the openers are always the same—­always; and of course they know me.  They’ve been in the habit of seeing me, during the last three or four years, come with the best-known and best-dressed women in Paris.  Which is to say, that I should never dare present myself before them with that creature from Roubaix.  They would think I had married for money.  I tried to explain that delicately to papa, but one can’t make him hear reason.  There are things which he doesn’t understand, which he can’t understand.  I have no grudge against him; he’s of his time, I’m of mine.  In short, I declared resolutely that I would never marry Number One.  Notice that I discoursed most sensibly with papa.  I said to him:  ’You want me to have a home’ (home is his word), ’but when I should have placed in that home a fright such as to scare the sparrows, my home would be a horror to me, and I should be forced, absolutely forced, to arrange a home outside.  Thus I should have a household at home and a household outside, and it’s then that the money would fly!’ But papa won’t listen to anything!  He doesn’t understand that I must have a little wife who is pretty, Parisian pretty—­that is to say, original, gay, jolly, who is looked at on the street, and stared at through opera-glasses at the theatre, who will do me honor, and who will set me off well.  I must be able to continue my bachelor life with her, and as long as possible.  And then there’s another thing that I can’t tell papa.  His name is Chamblard—­it isn’t his fault; only, in consequence, I too am named Chamblard, and it’s not very agreeable, with a name like that, to try to get on in society.  And a pretty, a very pretty, woman is the best passport.  There, look at Robineau.  He has just been received into the little club of the Rue Royale.  And why?  It’s not the Union or the Jockey; but never mind, one doesn’t get in there as into a hotel.  And why was Robineau received?”