ter of an hour's
observation of her husband's countenance.

"No, I am meditating," replied Adolphe.

"Oh, what an infernal temper you've got!" she returns, with a shrug of
the shoulders. "Is it for what I said about your stomach, your shape and
your digestion? Don't you see that I was only paying you back for your
vermilion? You'll make me think that men are as vain as women. [Adolphe
remains frigid.] It is really quite kind in you to take our qualities.
[Profound silence.] I made a joke and you got angry [she looks at
Adolphe], for you are angry. I am not like you: I cannot bear the idea
of having given you pain! Nevertheless, it's an idea that a man never
would have had, that of attributing your impertinence to something wrong
in your digestion. It's not my Dolph, it's his stomach that was bold
enough to speak. I did not know you were a ventriloquist, that's all."

Caroline looks at Adolphe and smiles: Adolphe is as stiff as if he were
glued.

"No, he won't laugh! And, in your jargon, you call this having
character. Oh, how much better we are!"

She goes and sits down in Adolphe's lap, and Adolphe cannot help
smiling. This smile, extracted as if by a steam engine, Caroline has
been on the watch for, in order to make a weapon of it.

"Come, old fellow, confess that you are wrong," she says. "Why pout?
Dear me, I like you just as you are: in my eyes you are as slender as
when I married you, and slenderer perhaps."

"Caroline, when people get to deceive themselves in these little
matters, where one makes concessions and the other does not get angry,
do you know what it means?"

"What does it mean?" asks Caroline, alarmed at Adolphe's dramatic
attitude.

"That they love each other less."

"Oh! you monster, I understand you: you were angry so as to make me
believe you loved me!"

Alas! let us confess it, Adolphe tells the truth in the only way he
can--by a laugh.

"Why give me pain?" she says. "If I am wrong in anything, isn't it
better to tell me of it kindly, than brutally to say [here she raises
her voice], 'Your nose is getting red!' No, that is not right! To please
you, I will use an expression of the fair Fischtaminel, 'It's not the
act of a gentleman!'"

Adolphe laughs and pays the expenses of the reconciliation; but instead
of discovering therein what will please Caroline and what will attach
her to him, he finds out what attaches him to her.

NOSOGRAPHY OF THE VILLA.

Is it advantageous