She answered: 

“All right:  I will tell him to-morrow morning.”

And he took her in his arms once more, to renew those sweet games of love which she had so enjoyed for the past week.

The following Tuesday, father-in-law and mother-in-law went to the station with their daughter and their son-in-law who were leaving for the capital.

The father-in-law said: 

“I tell you it is very imprudent to carry so much money about in a pocketbook.”  And the young lawyer smiled.

“Don’t worry; I am accustomed to such things.  You understand that, in my profession, I sometimes have as much as a million about me.  In this manner, at least we avoid a great amount of red tape and delay.  You needn’t worry.”

The conductor was crying: 

“All aboard for Paris!”

They scrambled into a car, where two old ladies were already seated.

Lebrument whispered into his wife’s ear: 

“What a bother!  I won’t be able to smoke.”

She answered in a low voice

“It annoys me too, but not an account of your cigar.”

The whistle blew and the train started.  The trip lasted about an hour, during which time they did not say very much to each other, as the two old ladies did not go to sleep.

As soon as they were in front of the Saint-Lazare Station, Maitre Lebrument said to his wife: 

“Dearie, let us first go over to the Boulevard and get something to eat; then we can quietly return and get our trunk and bring it to the hotel.”

She immediately assented.

“Oh! yes.  Let’s eat at the restaurant.  Is it far?”

He answered: 

“Yes, it’s quite a distance, but we will take the omnibus.”

She was surprised: 

“Why don’t we take a cab?”

He began to scold her smilingly: 

“Is that the way you save money?  A cab for a five minutes’ ride at six cents a minute!  You would deprive yourself of nothing.”

“That’s so,” she said, a little embarrassed.

A big omnibus was passing by, drawn by three big horses, which were trotting along.  Lebrument called out: 

“Conductor!  Conductor!”

The heavy carriage stopped.  And the young lawyer, pushing his wife, said to her quickly: 

“Go inside; I’m going up on top, so that I may smoke at least one cigarette before lunch.”

She had no time to answer.  The conductor, who had seized her by the arm to help her up the step, pushed her inside, and she fell into a seat, bewildered, looking through the back window at the feet of her husband as he climbed up to the top of the vehicle.

And she sat there motionless, between a fat man who smelled of cheap tobacco and an old woman who smelled of garlic.

All the other passengers were lined up in silence—­a grocer’s boy, a young girl, a soldier, a gentleman with gold-rimmed spectacles and a big silk hat, two ladies with a self-satisfied and crabbed look, which seemed to say:  “We are riding in this thing, but we don’t have to,” two sisters of charity and an undertaker.  They looked like a collection of caricatures.