Caroline, delighted with this appearance of good fortune, enters a little parlor where she finds the cloth laid and that neat little service set, which Borrel places at the disposal of those who are rich enough to pay for the quarters intended for the great ones of the earth, who make themselves small for an hour.

Women eat little at a formal dinner:  their concealed harness hampers them, they are laced tightly, and they are in the presence of women whose eyes and whose tongues are equally to be dreaded.  They prefer fancy eating to good eating, then:  they will suck a lobster’s claw, swallow a quail or two, punish a woodcock’s wing, beginning with a bit of fresh fish, flavored by one of those sauces which are the glory of French cooking.  France is everywhere sovereign in matters of taste:  in painting, fashions, and the like.  Gravy is the triumph of taste, in cookery.  So that grisettes, shopkeepers’ wives and duchesses are delighted with a tasty little dinner washed down with the choicest wines, of which, however, they drink but little, the whole concluded by fruit such as can only be had at Paris; and especially delighted when they go to the theatre to digest the little dinner, and listen, in a comfortable box, to the nonsense uttered upon the stage, and to that whispered in their ears to explain it.  But then the bill of the restaurant is one hundred francs, the box costs thirty, the carriage, dress, gloves, bouquet, as much more.  This gallantry amounts to the sum of one hundred and sixty francs, which is hard upon four thousand francs a month, if you go often to the Comic, the Italian, or the Grand, Opera.  Four thousand francs a month is the interest of a capital of two millions.  But then the honor of being a husband is fully worth the price!

Caroline tells her friends things which she thinks exceedingly flattering, but which cause a sagacious husband to make a wry face.

“Adolphe has been delightful for some time past.  I don’t know what I have done to deserve so much attention, but he overpowers me.  He gives value to everything by those delicate ways which have such an effect upon us women.  After taking me Monday to the Rocher de Cancale to dine, he declared that Very was as good a cook as Borrel, and he gave me the little party of pleasure that I told you of all over again, presenting me at dessert with a ticket for the opera.  They sang ‘William Tell,’ which, you know, is my craze.”

“You are lucky indeed,” returns Madame Deschars with evident jealousy.

“Still, a wife who discharges all her duties, deserves such luck, it seems to me.”

When this terrible sentiment falls from the lips of a married woman, it is clear that she does her duty, after the manner of school-boys, for the reward she expects.  At school, a prize is the object:  in marriage, a shawl or a piece of jewelry.  No more love, then!

“As for me,”—­Madame Deschars is piqued—­“I am reasonable.  Deschars committed such follies once, but I put a stop to it.  You see, my dear, we have two children, and I confess that one or two hundred francs are quite a consideration for me, as the mother of a family.”