One fine day, in May 1842, Madame de la Baudraye paid all her little household debts and left a thousand crowns on top of the packet of receipted bills.  After sending her mother and the children away to the Hotel de la Baudraye, she awaited Lousteau, dressed ready to leave the house.  When the deposed king of her heart came into dinner, she said: 

“I have upset the pot, my dear.  Madame de la Baudraye requests the pleasure of your company at the Rocher de Cancale.”

She carried off Lousteau, quite bewildered by the light and easy manners assumed by the woman who till that morning has been the slave of his least whim, for she too had been acting a farce for two months past.

“Madame de la Baudraye is figged out as if for a first night,” said he —­une premiere, the slang abbreviation for a first performance.

“Do not forget the respect you owe to Madame de la Baudraye,” said Dinah gravely.  “I do not mean to understand such a word as figged out.”

“Didine a rebel!” said he, putting his arm round her waist.

“There is no such person as Didine; you have killed her, my dear,” she replied, releasing herself.  “I am taking you to the first performance of Madame la Comtesse de la Baudraye.”

“It is true, then, that our insect is a peer of France?”

“The nomination is to be gazetted in this evening’s Moniteur, as I am told by Monsieur de Clagny, who is promoted to the Court of Appeal.”

“Well, it is quite right,” said the journalist.  “The entomology of society ought to be represented in the Upper House.”

“My friend, we are parting for ever,” said Madame de la Baudraye, trying to control the trembling of her voice.  “I have dismissed the two servants.  When you go in, you will find the house in order, and no debts.  I shall always feel a mother’s affection for you, but in secret.  Let us part calmly, without a fuss, like decent people.

“Have you had a fault to find with my conduct during the past six years?”

“None, but that you have spoiled my life, and wrecked my prospects,” said he in a hard tone.  “You have read Benjamin Constant’s book very diligently; you have even studied the last critique on it; but you have read with a woman’s eyes.  Though you have one of those superior intellects which would make a fortune of a poet, you have never dared to take the man’s point of view.

“That book, my dear, is of both sexes.—­We agreed that books were male or female, dark or fair.  In Adolphe women see nothing but Ellenore; young men see only Adolphe; men of experience see Ellenore and Adolphe; political men see the whole of social existence.  You did not think it necessary to read the soul of Adolphe—­any more than your critic indeed, who saw only Ellenore.  What kills that poor fellow, my dear, is that he has sacrificed his future for a woman; that he never can be what