Mademoiselle Habert and Mademoiselle Sylvie were equally desirous of marrying, but one was ten years older than the other, and the probabilities of life allowed Celeste Habert to expect that her children would inherit all the Rogron property.  Sylvie was forty-two, an age at which marriage is beset by perils.  In confiding to each other their ideas, Celeste, instigated by her vindictive brother the priest, enlightened Sylvie as to the dangers she would incur.  Sylvie trembled; she was terribly afraid of death, an idea which shakes all celibates to their centre.  But just at this time the Martignac ministry came into power,—­a Liberal victory which overthrew the Villele administration.  The Vinet party now carried their heads high in Provins.  Vinet himself became a personage.  The Liberals prophesied his advancement; he would certainly be deputy and attorney-general.  As for the colonel, he would be made mayor of Provins.  Ah, to reign as Madame Garceland, the wife of the present mayor, now reigned!  Sylvie could not hold out against that hope; she determined to consult a doctor, though the proceeding would only cover her with ridicule.  To consult Monsieur Neraud, the Liberal physician and the rival of Monsieur Martener, would be a blunder.  Celeste Habert offered to hide Sylvie in her dressing-room while she herself consulted Monsieur Martener, the physician of her establishment, on this difficult matter.  Whether Martener was, or was not, Celeste’s accomplice need not be discovered; at any rate, he told his client that even at thirty the danger, though slight, did exist.  “But,” he added, “with your constitution, you need fear nothing.”

“But how about a woman over forty?” asked Mademoiselle Celeste.

“A married woman who has had children has nothing to fear.”

“But I mean an unmarried woman, like Mademoiselle Rogron, for instance?”

“Oh, that’s another thing,” said Monsieur Martener.  “Successful childbirth is then one of those miracles which God sometimes allows himself, but rarely.”

“Why?” asked Celeste.

The doctor answered with a terrifying pathological description; he explained that the elasticity given by nature to youthful muscles and bones did not exist at a later age, especially in women whose lives were sedentary.

“So you think that an unmarried woman ought not to marry after forty?”

“Not unless she waits some years,” replied the doctor.  “But then, of course, it is not marriage, it is only an association of interests.”

The result of the interview, clearly, seriously, scientifically and sensibly stated, was that an unmarried woman would make a great mistake in marrying after forty.  When the doctor had departed Mademoiselle Celeste found Sylvie in a frightful state, green and yellow, and with the pupils of her eyes dilated.

“Then you really love the colonel?” asked Celeste.

“I still hoped,” replied Sylvie.