the other a
blonde. They say they are widows. H'm?

"I offered to accompany them to Royat tomorrow, and they accepted my
offer.

"Chatel-Guyon is less sad than I thought on my arrival.

"July 23d.--Day spent at Royat. Royat is a little patch of hotels at
the bottom of a valley, at the gate of Clermont-Ferrand. A great many
people there. A large park full of life. Superb view of the Puyde-Dome,
seen at the end of a perspective of valleys.

"My fair companions are very popular, which is flattering to me. The man
who escorts a pretty woman always believes himself crowned with an
aureole; with much more reason, the man who is accompanied by one on each
side of him. Nothing is so pleasant as to dine in a fashionable
restaurant with a female companion at whom everybody stares, and there is
nothing better calculated to exalt a man in the estimation of his
neighbors.

"To go to the Bois, in a trap drawn by a sorry nag, or to go out into the
boulevard escorted by a plain woman, are the two most humiliating things
that could happen to a sensitive heart that values the opinion of others.
Of all luxuries, woman is the rarest and the most distinguished; she is
the one that costs most and which we desire most; she is, therefore the
one that we should seek by preference to exhibit to the jealous eyes of
the world.

"To exhibit to the world a pretty woman leaning on your arm is to excite,
all at once, every kind of jealousy. It is as much as to say: 'Look here!
I am rich, since I possess this rare and costly object; I have taste,
since I have known how to discover this pearl; perhaps, even, I am loved
by her, unless I am deceived by her, which would still prove that others
also consider her charming.

"But, what a disgrace it is to walk about town with an ugly woman!

"And how many humiliating things this gives people to understand!

"In the first place, they assume she must be your wife, for how could it
be supposed that you would have an unattractive sweetheart? A true woman
may be ungraceful; but then, her ugliness implies a thousand disagreeable
things for you. One supposes you must be a notary or a magistrate, as
these two professions have a monopoly of grotesque and well-dowered
spouses. Now, is this not distressing to a man? And then, it seems to
proclaim to the public that you have the odious courage, and are even
under a legal obligation, to caress that ridiculous face and that
ill-shaped body, and that you will, w