ally 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.

"Well, then, wait!" cried Mademoiselle Habert, Jesuitically, aware
that time would rid her of the colonel.

Sylvie's new devotion to the church warned her that the morality of
such a marriage might be doubtful. She accordingly sounded her
conscience in the confessional. The stern priest explained the
opinions of the Church, which sees in marriage only the propagation of
humanity, and rebukes second marriages and all passions but those with
a social purpose. Sylvie's perplexities were great. These internal
struggles gave extraordinary force to her passion, investing it with
that inexplicable attraction which, from the days of Eve, the thing
forbidden possesses for women. Mademoiselle Rogron's perturbation did
not escape the lynx-eyed lawyer.

One evening, after the game had ended, Vinet approached his dear
friend Sylvie, took her hand, and led her to a sofa.

"Something troubles you," he said.

She nodded sadly. The lawyer let the others depart; Rogron walked home
with the Chargeboeufs, and when Vinet was alone with the old maid he
wormed the truth out of her.

"Cleverly played, abbe!" thought he. "But you've played into my
hands."

The foxy lawyer was more decided in his opinion than even the doctor.
He advised marriage in ten years. Inwardly he was vowing that the
whole Rogron fortune should go to Bathilde. He rubbed his hands, his
pinched lips closed more tightly as he hurried home. The influence
exercised by Monsieur Habert, physician of the soul, and by Vinet,
doctor of the purse, balanced each other perfectly. Rogron had no
piety in him; so the churchman and the man of law, the black-robed
pair, were fairly matched.

On discovering the victory obtained by Celeste, in her anxiety to
marry Rogron herself, over Sylvie, torn between the fear of death and
the joy o