I may incite Roger's confidant to relate me my own history. I
forgot to mention that since my arrival here M. de Meilhan has been
every day to call on Madame Taverneau. She evidently imagines herself
the object of his visits. I am of a different opinion. Indeed, I fear I
have made a conquest of this dark-eyed young poet, which is not at all
flattering to me. This sudden adoration shows that he has not a very
elevated opinion of me. How he will laugh when he recognises this
adventurous widow in the proud wife of his friend!

You reproach me bitterly for having sacrificed you to Madame Taverneau.
Cruel Prefect that you are, go and accuse the government and your
consul-general of this unjust preference.

Can I reach Grenoble in three hours, as I do Rouen? Can I return from
Grenoble to Paris in three hours; fly when I wish, reappear when 'tis
necessary? In a word have you a railway? No! Well, then, trust to my
experience and believe that where locomotion is concerned there is an
end to friendship, gratitude, sympathy and devotion. Nothing is to be
considered but railways, roads, wagons that jolt you to death, but carry
you to your destination, and stages that upset and never arrive.

We cannot visit the friends we love best, but those we can get away from
with the greatest facility.

Besides, for a heroine wishing to hide herself, the asylum you offer has
nothing mysterious, it is merely a Thebais of a prefecture; and there I
am afraid of compromising you.

A Parisian in a provincial town is always standing on a volcano, one
unlucky word may cause destruction.

How difficult it is to be a Prefect! You have commenced very
properly--four children! All that is necessary to begin with. They are
such convenient excuses. To be a good Prefect one must have four
children. They are inexhaustible pretexts for escaping social horrors;
if you wish to decline a compromising invitation, your dear little girl
has got the whooping cough; when you wish to avoid dining a friend _in
transitu_, your eldest son has a dreadful fever; you desire to escape a
banquet unadorned by the presence of the big-wigs--brilliant idea! all
four children have the measles.

Now confess you did well to have the four lovely children! Without them
you would be conquered in spite of your wisdom; it requires so much
skill for a Parisian to live officially in a province!

There all the women are clever; the most insignificant citizen's wife
can outwit an old