“Don’t speak of it, it is quite a history.  As it happened, the casting of the parts took place the very evening on which his Holiness’s Encyclical was published, so that the gentlemen were somewhat excited.  Monsieur de Saint P. took high ground, really very high ground; indeed, I thought for a moment that the General was going to flare out.  In short, no one would have anything to do with Unbelief, and we had to have recourse to the General’s coachman, John—­you know him?  He is a good-looking fellow; he is a Protestant, moreover, so that the part is not a novel one to him.”

“No matter, it will be disagreeable for the De N.’s to appear side by side with a servant.”

“Come! such scruples must not be carried too far; he is smeared over with black and lies stretched on his face, while the three ladies trample on him, so you see that social proprieties are observed after all.  Come, have you done yet?  My hair is rather a success, is it not?  Silvani is the only man who understands how to powder one.  He wanted to dye it red, but I prefer to wait till red hair has found its way a little more into society.”

“There; it is finished, aunt.  Is it long before you have to go on?”

“No.  Good Heavens, it is close on eleven o’clock!  The thought of appearing before all these people—­don’t the flowers drooping from my head make my neck appear rather awkward, Ernest?  Will you push them up a little?”

Then going to the door of the dressing-room she tapped at it gently, saying, “Are you ready, Monsieur de V.?”

“Yes, Baroness, I have found my apple, but I am horribly nervous.  Are Minerva and Juno dressed?  Oh!  I am nervous to a degree you have no idea of.”

“Yes, yes, every one is ready; send word to the company in the drawing-room.  My poor heart throbs like to burst, Captain.”

CHAPTER IX

Husband and wife
my dear sisters: 

Marriage, as it is now understood, is not exactly conducive to love.  In this I do not think that I am stating an anomaly.  Love in marriage is, as a rule, too much at his ease; he stretches himself with too great listlessness in armchairs too well cushioned.  He assumes the unconstrained habits of dressing-gown and slippers; his digestion goes wrong, his appetite fails and of an evening, in the too-relaxing warmth of a nest, made for him, he yawns over his newspaper, goes to sleep, snores, and pines away.  It is all very well, my sisters, to say, “But not at all—­but how can it be, Father Z.?—­you know nothing about it, reverend father.”

I maintain that things are as I have stated, and that at heart you are absolutely of my opinion.  Yes, your poor heart has suffered very often; there are nights during which you have wept, poor angel, vainly awaiting the dream of the evening before.

“Alas!” you say, “is it then all over?  One summer’s day, then thirty years of autumn, to me, who am so fond of sunshine.”  That is what you have thought.