If Caroline writes the following little note to Madame de Fischtaminel: 

“Dearest Angel: 

“You will probably see Adolphe to-morrow, but do not keep him too long, for I want to go to ride with him at five:  but if you are desirous of taking him to ride yourself, do so and I will take him up.  You ought to teach me your secret for entertaining used-up people as you do.”

Madame de Fischtaminel says to herself:  “Gracious!  So I shall have that fellow on my hands to-morrow from twelve o’clock to five.”

Axiom.—­Men do not always know a woman’s positive request when they see it; but another woman never mistakes it:  she does the contrary.

Those sweet little beings called women, and especially Parisian women, are the prettiest jewels that social industry has invented.  Those who do not adore them, those who do not feel a constant jubilation at seeing them laying their plots while braiding their hair, creating special idioms for themselves and constructing with their slender fingers machines strong enough to destroy the most powerful fortunes, must be wanting in a positive sense.

On one occasion Caroline takes the most minute precautions.  She writes the day before to Madame Foullepointe to go to St. Maur with Adolphe, to look at a piece of property for sale there.  Adolphe would go to breakfast with her.  She aids Adolphe in dressing.  She twits him with the care he bestows upon his toilet, and asks absurd questions about Madame Foullepointe.

“She’s real nice, and I think she is quite tired of Charles:  you’ll inscribe her yet upon your catalogue, you old Don Juan:  but you won’t have any further need of Chaumontel’s affair; I’m no longer jealous, you’ve got a passport.  Do you like that better than being adored?  Monster, observe how considerate I am.”

So soon as her husband has gone, Caroline, who had not omitted, the previous evening, to write to Ferdinand to come to breakfast with her, equips herself in a costume which, in that charming eighteenth century so calumniated by republicans, humanitarians and idiots, women of quality called their fighting-dress.

Caroline has taken care of everything.  Love is the first house servant in the world, so the table is set with positively diabolic coquetry.  There is the white damask cloth, the little blue service, the silver gilt urn, the chiseled milk pitcher, and flowers all round!

If it is winter, she has got some grapes, and has rummaged the cellar for the very best old wine.  The rolls are from the most famous baker’s.  The succulent dishes, the pate de foie gras, the whole of this elegant entertainment, would have made the author of the Glutton’s Almanac neigh with impatience:  it would make a note-shaver smile, and tell a professor of the old University what the matter in hand is.

Everything is prepared.  Caroline has been ready since the night before:  she contemplates her work.  Justine sighs and arranges the furniture.  Caroline picks off the yellow leaves of the plants in the windows.  A woman, in these cases, disguises what we may call the prancings of the heart, by those meaningless occupations in which the fingers have all the grip of pincers, when the pink nails burn, and when this unspoken exclamation rasps the throat:  “He hasn’t come yet!”