it. I may forgive it, but I can never forget it."

Women represent themselves as implacable only to render their
forgiveness charming: they have anticipated God.

"We have now to live in common like two friends," continues Caroline.
"Well, let us live like two comrades, two brothers, I do not wish to
make your life intolerable, and I never again will speak to you of what
has happened--"

Adolphe gives Caroline his hand: she takes it, and shakes it in the
English style. Adolphe thanks Caroline, and catches a glimpse of bliss:
he has converted his wife into a sister, and hopes to be a bachelor
again.

The next day Caroline indulges in a very witty allusion (Adolphe cannot
help laughing at it) to Chaumontel's affair. In society she makes
general remarks which, to Adolphe, are very particular remarks, about
their last quarrel.

At the end of a fortnight a day never passes without Caroline's
recalling their last quarrel by saying: "It was the day when I found
Chaumontel's bill in your pocket:" or "it happened since our last
quarrel:" or, "it was the day when, for the first time, I had a clear
idea of life," etc. She assassinates Adolphe, she martyrizes him! In
society she gives utterance to terrible things.

"We are happy, my dear [to a lady], when we love each other no longer:
it's then that we learn how to make ourselves beloved," and she looks at
Ferdinand.

In short, the last quarrel never comes to an end, and from this fact
flows the following axiom:

Axiom.--Putting yourself in the wrong with your lawful wife, is solving
the problem of Perpetual Motion.

A SIGNAL FAILURE.

Women, and especially married women, stick ideas into their brain-pan
precisely as they stick pins into a pincushion, and the devil
himself,--do you mind?--could not get them out: they reserve to
themselves the exclusive right of sticking them in, pulling them out,
and sticking them in again.

Caroline is riding home one evening from Madame Foullepointe's in a
violent state of jealousy and ambition.

Madame Foullepointe, the lioness--but this word requires an explanation.
It is a fashionable neologism, and gives expression to certain rather
meagre ideas relative to our present society: you must use it, if you
want to describe a woman who is all the rage. This lioness rides on
horseback every day, and Caroline has taken it into her head to learn to
ride also.

Observe that in this conjugal phase, Adolphe and Caroline are in t