husband must already have
divined at a single look the object of his visit, and he reads the soul
of the new arrival as if it were a printed book.

The manner in which he approaches your wife, in which he addresses her,
looks at her, greets her and retires--there are volumes of observations,
more or less trifling, to be made on these subjects.

The tone of his voice, his bearing, his awkwardness, it may be his
smile, even his gloom, his avoidance of your eye,--all are significant,
all ought to be studied, but without apparent attention. You ought to
conceal the most disagreeable discovery you may make by an easy manner
and remarks such as are ready at hand to a man of society. As we are
unable to detail the minutiae of this subject we leave them entirely
to the sagacity of the reader, who must by this time have perceived the
drift of our investigation, as well as the extent of this science which
begins at the analysis of glances and ends in the direction of such
movements as contempt may inspire in a great toe hidden under the satin
of a lady's slipper or the leather of a man's boot.

But the exit!--for we must allow for occasions where you have omitted
your rigid scrutiny at the threshold of the doorway, and in that case
the exit becomes of vital importance, and all the more so because this
fresh study of the celibate ought to be made on the same lines, but from
an opposite point of view, from that which we have already outlined.

In the exit the situation assumes a special gravity; for then is the
moment in which the enemy has crossed all the intrenchments within which
he was subject to our examination and has escaped into the street! At
this point a man of understanding when he sees a visitor passing under
the _porte-cochere_ should be able to divine the import of the whole
visit. The indications are indeed fewer in number, but how distinct
is their character! The denouement has arrived and the man instantly
betrays the importance of it by the frankest expression of happiness,
pain or joy.

These revelations are therefore easy to apprehend; they appear in the
glance cast either at the building or at the windows of the apartment;
in a slow or loitering gait, in the rubbing of hands, on the part of a
fool, in the bounding gait of a coxcomb, or the involuntary arrest of
his footsteps, which marks the man who is deeply moved; in a word, you
see upon the stoop certain questions as clearly proposed to you as if a
pro