is conceived and
elaborated, the fragments of a pretty woman, litter every corner of the
room. To the love of a yawning husband, the actual presents herself,
also yawning, in a dishabille without elegance, and a tumbled night-cap,
that of last night and that of to-morrow night also,--"For really,
monsieur, if you want a pretty cap to rumple every night, increase my
pin-money."

There's life as it is! A woman makes herself old and unpleasing to her
husband; but dainty and elegant and adorned for others, for the rival of
all husbands,--for that world which calumniates and tears to shreds her
sex.

Inspired by true love, for Love has, like other creations, its instinct
of preservation, Madame Jules did very differently; she found in the
constant blessing of her love the necessary impulse to fulfil all those
minute personal cares which ought never to be relaxed, because they
perpetuate love. Besides, such personal cares and duties proceed from a
personal dignity which becomes all women, and are among the sweetest of
flatteries, for is it not respecting in themselves the man they love?

So Madame Jules denied to her husband all access to her dressing-room,
where she left the accessories of her toilet, and whence she issued
mysteriously adorned for the mysterious fetes of her heart. Entering
their chamber, which was always graceful and elegant, Jules found a
woman coquettishly wrapped in a charming _peignoir_, her hair simply
wound in heavy coils around her head; a woman always more simple, more
beautiful there than she was before the world; a woman just refreshed in
water, whose only artifice consisted in being whiter than her muslins,
sweeter than all perfumes, more seductive than any siren, always loving
and therefore always loved. This admirable understanding of a wife's
business was the secret of Josephine's charm for Napoleon, as in former
times it was that of Caesonia for Caius Caligula, of Diane de Poitiers
for Henri II. If it was largely productive to women of seven or eight
lustres what a weapon is it in the hands of young women! A husband
gathers with delight the rewards of his fidelity.

Returning home after the conversation which had chilled her with fear,
and still gave her the keenest anxiety, Madame Jules took particular
pains with her toilet for the night. She wanted to make herself, and she
did make herself enchanting. She belted the cambric of her dressing-gown
round her waist, defining the lines of her