for the last ten years!"

"Come, tell me all you've done to-day, it will amuse me. You ought to
try to please me while you are here! I'm dull enough when you leave me
alone all day long."

"You want me to amuse you by telling you about business?"

"Formerly, you told me everything--"

This friendly little reproach disguises the certitude that Caroline
wishes to enjoy respecting the serious matters which Adolphe wishes to
conceal. Adolphe then undertakes to narrate how he has spent the day.
Caroline affects a sort of distraction sufficiently well played to
induce the belief that she is not listening.

"But you said just now," she exclaims, at the moment when Adolphe is
getting into a snarl, "that you had paid seven francs for cabs, and
you now talk of a hack! You took it by the hour, I suppose? Did you do
your business in a hack?" she asks, railingly.

"Why should hacks be interdicted?" inquires Adolphe, resuming his
narrative.

"Haven't you been to Madame de Fischtaminel's?" she asks in the middle
of an exceedingly involved explanation, insolently taking the words
out of your mouth.

"Why should I have been there?"

"It would have given me pleasure: I wanted to know whether her parlor
is done."

"It is."

"Ah! then you _have_ been there?"

"No, her upholsterer told me."

"Do you know her upholsterer?"

"Yes."

"Who is it?"

"Braschon."

"So you met the upholsterer?"

"Yes."

"You said you only went in carriages."

"Yes, my dear, but to get carriages, you have to go and--"

"Pooh! I dare say Braschon was in the carriage, or the parlor was--one
or the other is equally probable."

"You won't listen," exclaims Adolphe, who thinks that a long story
will lull Caroline's suspicions.

"I've listened too much already. You've been lying for the last hour,
worse than a drummer."

"Well, I'll say nothing more."

"I know enough. I know all I wanted to know. You say you've seen
lawyers, notaries, bankers: now you haven't seen one of them! Suppose
I were to go to-morrow to see Madame de Fischtaminel, do you know what
she would say?"

Here, Caroline watches Adolphe closely: but Adolphe affects a delusive
calmness, in the middle of which Caroline throws out her line to fish
up a clue.

"Why, she would say that she had had the pleasure of seeing you! How
wretched we poor creatures are! We never know what you are doing: here
we are stuck, chained at home, while you are off at your business!
Fine b