“Yes, but he has representatives, a lawyer—­”

“Didn’t you do anything else but business?” asks Caroline, interrupting Adolphe.

Here she gives him a direct, piercing look, by which she plunges into her husband’s eyes when he least expects it:  a sword in a heart.

“What could I have done?  Made a little counterfeit money, run into debt, or embroidered a sampler?”

“Oh, dear, I don’t know.  And I can’t even guess.  I am too dull, you’ve told me so a hundred times.”

“There you go, and take an expression of endearment in bad part.  How like a woman that is!”

“Have you concluded anything?” she asks, pretending to take an interest in business.

“No, nothing,”

“How many persons have you seen?”

“Eleven, without counting those who were walking in the streets.”

“How you answer me!”

“Yes, and how you question me!  As if you’d been following the trade of an examining judge for the last ten years!”

“Come, tell me all you’ve done to-day, it will amuse me.  You ought to try to please me while you are here!  I’m dull enough when you leave me alone all day long.”

“You want me to amuse you by telling you about business?”

“Formerly, you told me everything—­”

This friendly little reproach disguises the certitude that Caroline wishes to enjoy respecting the serious matters which Adolphe wishes to conceal.  Adolphe then undertakes to narrate how he has spent the day.  Caroline affects a sort of distraction sufficiently well played to induce the belief that she is not listening.

“But you said just now,” she exclaims, at the moment when Adolphe is getting into a snarl, “that you had paid seven francs for cabs, and you now talk of a hack!  You took it by the hour, I suppose?  Did you do your business in a hack?” she asks, railingly.

“Why should hacks be interdicted?” inquires Adolphe, resuming his narrative.

“Haven’t you been to Madame de Fischtaminel’s?” she asks in the middle of an exceedingly involved explanation, insolently taking the words out of your mouth.

“Why should I have been there?”

“It would have given me pleasure:  I wanted to know whether her parlor is done.”

“It is.”

“Ah! then you have been there?”

“No, her upholsterer told me.”

“Do you know her upholsterer?”

“Yes.”

“Who is it?”

“Braschon.”

“So you met the upholsterer?”

“Yes.”

“You said you only went in carriages.”

“Yes, my dear, but to get carriages, you have to go and—­”

“Pooh!  I dare say Braschon was in the carriage, or the parlor was—­one or the other is equally probable.”

“You won’t listen,” exclaims Adolphe, who thinks that a long story will lull Caroline’s suspicions.

“I’ve listened too much already.  You’ve been lying for the last hour, worse than a drummer.”