rop are everlastingly reviving,
like the hammer of a note in the piano. This constitutes an irritant,
which never flourishes except at the period when the young wife's
timidity gives place to that fatal equality of rights which is at once
devastating France and the conjugal relation. Every season has its
peculiar vexation.

Caroline, after a week spent in taking note of her husband's absences,
perceives that he passes seven hours a day away from her. At last,
Adolphe, who comes home as gay as an actor who has been applauded,
observes a slight coating of hoar frost upon Caroline's visage. After
making sure that the coldness of her manner has been observed,
Caroline puts on a counterfeit air of interest,--the well-known
expression of which possesses the gift of making a man inwardly
swear,--and says: "You must have had a good deal of business to-day,
dear?"

"Oh, lots!"

"Did you take many cabs?"

"I took seven francs' worth."

"Did you find everybody in?"

"Yes, those with whom I had appointments."

"When did you make appointments with them? The ink in your inkstand is
dried up; it's like glue; I wanted to write, and spent a whole hour in
moistening it, and even then only produced a thick mud fit to mark
bundles with for the East Indies."

Here any and every husband looks suspiciously at his better half.

"It is probable that I wrote them at Paris--"

"What business was it, Adolphe?"

"Why, I thought you knew. Shall I run over the list? First, there's
Chaumontel's affair--"

"I thought Monsieur Chaumontel was in Switzerland--"

"Yes, but he has representatives, a lawyer--"

"Didn't you do anything else but business?" asks Caroline,
interrupting Adolphe.

Here she gives him a direct, piercing look, by which she plunges into
her husband's eyes when he least expects it: a sword in a heart.

"What could I have done? Made a little counterfeit money, run into
debt, or embroidered a sampler?"

"Oh, dear, I don't know. And I can't even guess. I am too dull, you've
told me so a hundred times."

"There you go, and take an expression of endearment in bad part. How
like a woman that is!"

"Have you concluded anything?" she asks, pretending to take an
interest in business.

"No, nothing,"

"How many persons have you seen?"

"Eleven, without counting those who were walking in the streets."

"How you answer me!"

"Yes, and how you question me! As if you'd been following the trade of
an examining judge