occurs. Are you in mourning, he avoids you. Are you confined, he awaits
your churching before he visits you. He possesses a mundane frankness
and a social intrepidity which challenge admiration."

"But does it not require courage to appear to be what one really is?" I
asked.

"Well," she resumed, after we had exchanged our observations on this
point, "this young old man, this universal Amadis, whom we call among
ourselves Chevalier _Petit-Bon-Homme-vil-encore_, became the object of
my admiration. I made him a few of those advances which never compromise
a woman; I spoke of the good taste exhibited in his latest waistcoats
and in his canes, and he thought me a lady of extreme amiability. I
thought him a chevalier of extreme youth; he called upon me; I put on a
number of little airs, and pretended to be unhappy at home, and to have
deep sorrows. You know what a woman means when she talks of her sorrows,
and complains that she is not understood. The old ape replied much
better than a young man would, and I had the greatest difficulty in
keeping a straight face while I listened to him.

"'Ah, that's the way with husbands, they pursue the very worst polity,
they respect their wives, and, sooner or later, every woman is enraged
at finding herself respected, and divines the secret education to which
she is entitled. Once married, you ought not to live like a little
school-girl, etc.'

"As he spoke, he leaned over me, he squirmed, he was horrible to see. He
looked like a wooden Nuremberg doll, he stuck out his chin, he stuck out
his chair, he stuck out his hand--in short, after a variety of marches
and countermarches, of declarations that were perfectly angelic--"

"No!"

"Yes. _Petit-Bon-Homme-vil-encore_ had abandoned the classicism of
his youth for the romanticism now in fashion: he spoke of the soul,
of angels, of adoration, of submission, he became ethereal, and of the
darkest blue. He took me to the opera, and handed me to my carriage.
This old young man went when I went, his waistcoats multiplied, he
compressed his waist, he excited his horse to a gallop in order to catch
and accompany my carriage to the promenade: he compromised me with the
grace of a young collegian, and was considered madly in love with me.
I was steadfastly cruel, but accepted his arm and his bouquets. We were
talked about. I was delighted, and managed before long to be surprised
by my husband, with the viscount on the sofa in my boudoir, holdi