“Very well, Benoit.”

Everybody had heard the rumblings of the vehicle.  It was known that the husband had been at Paris since Monday, and this took place on Saturday, at four in the afternoon.

“He’s got something important to say to you, madame.”

Though this dialogue was held in a whisper, it was perfectly understood, and all the more so from the fact that the lady of the house turned from the pale hue of the Bengal rose to the brilliant crimson of the wheatfield poppy.  She nodded and went on with the conversation, and managed to leave her company on the pretext of learning whether her husband had succeeded in an important undertaking or not:  but she seemed plainly vexed at Adolphe’s want of consideration for the company who were visiting her.

During their youth, women want to be treated as divinities, they love the ideal; they cannot bear the idea of being what nature intended them to be.

Some husbands, on retiring to the country, after a week in town, are worse than this:  they bow to the company, put their arm round their wife’s waist, take a little walk with her, appear to be talking confidentially, disappear in a clump of trees, get lost, and reappear half an hour afterward.

This, ladies, is a genuine petty trouble for a young woman, but for a woman beyond forty, this sort of indiscretion is so delightful, that the greatest prudes are flattered by it, for, be it known: 

That women of a certain age, women on the shady side, want to be treated as mortals, they love the actual; they cannot bear the idea of no longer being what nature intended them to be.

Axiom.—­Modesty is a relative virtue; there is the modesty of the woman of twenty, the woman of thirty, the woman of forty-five.

Thus the author said to a lady who told him to guess at her age:  “Madame, yours is the age of indiscretion.”

This charming woman of thirty-nine was making a Ferdinand much too conspicuous, while her daughter was trying to conceal her Ferdinand I.

BRUTAL DISCLOSURES.

FIRST STYLE.  Caroline adores Adolphe, she thinks him handsome, she thinks him superb, especially in his National Guard uniform.  She starts when a sentinel presents arms to him, she considers him moulded like a model, she regards him as a man of wit, everything he does is right, nobody has better taste than he, in short, she is crazy about Adolphe.

It’s the old story of Cupid’s bandage.  This is washed every ten years, and newly embroidered by the altered manners of the period, but it has been the same old bandage since the days of Greece.

Caroline is at a ball with one of her young friends.  A man well known for his bluntness, whose acquaintance she is to make later in life, but whom she now sees for the first time, Monsieur Foullepointe, has commenced a conversation with Caroline’s friend.  According to the custom of society, Caroline listens to this conversation without mingling in it.