vers at noon, and in ecstasies over
baccarat at midnight; who laugh in little nooks together over each
other's immoralities, and have a moral code so elastic that it will
pardon anything except innocence; who gossip over each other's dresses,
and each other's passions, in the self-same, self-satisfied chirp of
contentment, and who never resent anything on earth, except any
eccentric suggestion that life could be anything except a perpetual fete
a la Watteau in a perpetual blaze of lime-light.

Pain?--Are there not chloral and a flattering doctor? Sorrow?--Are there
not a course at the Baths, play at Monte Carlo, and new cases from
Worth? Shame?--Is it not a famine fever which never comes near a
well-laden table? Old Age?--Is there not white and red paint, and heads
of dead hair, and even false bosoms? Death? Well, no doubt there is
death, but they do not realise it; they hardly believe in it, they think
about it so little.

There is something unknown somewhere to fall on them some day that they
dread vaguely, for they are terrible cowards. But they worry as little
about it as possible. They give the millionth part of what they possess
away in its name to whatever church they belong to, and they think they
have arranged quite comfortably for all possible contingencies
hereafter.

If it make things safe, they will head bazaars for the poor, or wear
black in holy week, turn lottery-wheels for charity, or put on fancy
dresses in the name of benevolence, or do any little amiable trifle of
that sort. But as for changing their lives,--_pas si bete!_

A bird in the hand they hold worth two in the bush; and though your
birds may be winged on strong desire, and your bush the burning portent
of Moses, they will have none of them.

These women are not all bad; oh, no! they are like sheep, that is all.
If it were fashionable to be virtuous, very likely they would be so. If
it were _chic_ to be devout, no doubt they would pass their life on
their knees. But, as it is, they know that a flavour of vice is as
necessary to their reputation as great ladies, as sorrel-leaves to soup
a la bonne femme. They affect a license if they take it not.

They are like the barber, who said, with much pride, to Voltaire, "Je ne
suis qu'un pauvre diable de perruquier, mais je ne crois pas en Dieu
plus que les autres."

They may be worth very little, but they are desperately afraid that you
should make such a mistake as to think them worth anythi