e 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.

"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