MONSIEUR FOULLEPOINTE.  Yes, it’s a very agreeable house.

A WOMAN ABOUT WHOM THERE IS A GOOD DEAL OF SCANDAL.  Caroline is kind and obliging, and never talks scandal of anybody.

A YOUNG LADY, returning to her place after a dance.  Don’t you remember how tiresome she was when she visited the Deschars?

MADAME DE FISCHTAMINEL.  Oh!  She and her husband were two bundles of briars—­continually quarreling. [She goes away.]

AN ARTIST. I hear that the individual known as Deschars is getting dissipated:  he goes round town—­

A WOMAN, alarmed at the turn the conversation is taking, as her daughter can hear.  Madame de Fischtaminel is charming, this evening.

A WOMAN OF FORTY, without employment.  Monsieur Adolphe appears to be as happy as his wife.

A YOUNG LADY.  Oh! what a sweet man Monsieur Ferdinand is! [Her mother reproves her by a sharp nudge with her foot.] What’s the matter, mamma?

HER MOTHER, looking at her fixedly.  A young woman should not speak so, my dear, of any one but her betrothed, and Monsieur Ferdinand is not a marrying man.

A LADY DRESSED RATHER LOW IN THE NECK, to another lady dressed equally low, in a whisper.  The fact is, my dear, the moral of all this is that there are no happy couples but couples of four.

A FRIEND, whom the author was so imprudent as to consult.  Those last words are false.

THE AUTHOR.  Do you think so?

THE FRIEND, who has just been married.  You all of you use your ink in depreciating social life, on the pretext of enlightening us!  Why, there are couples a hundred, a thousand times happier than your boasted couples of four.

THE AUTHOR.  Well, shall I deceive the marrying class of the population, and scratch the passage out?

THE FRIEND.  No, it will be taken merely as the point of a song in a vaudeville.

THE AUTHOR.  Yes, a method of passing truths off upon society.

THE FRIEND, who sticks to his opinion.  Such truths as are destined to be passed off upon it.

THE AUTHOR, who wants to have the last word.  Who and what is there that does not pass off, or become passe?  When your wife is twenty years older, we will resume this conversation.

THE FRIEND.  You revenge yourself cruelly for your inability to write the history of happy homes.

THE END