n that I am justified in resenting that the man
who aspires to become my husband should at the same time be paying such
assiduous homage to a wretched theatre girl at the Feydau."

"Aline!"

"Is it not true? Or perhaps you do not find it strange that M. de La
Tour d'Azyr should so conduct himself at such a time?"

"Aline, you are so extraordinary a mixture. At moments you shock me by
the indecency of your expressions; at others you amaze me by the excess
of your prudery. You have been brought up like a little bourgeoise, I
think. Yes, that is it--a little bourgeoise. Quintin was always something
of a shopkeeper at heart."

"I was asking your opinion on the conduct of M. de La Tour d'Azyr,
madame. Not on my own."

"But it is an indelicacy in you to observe such things. You should be
ignorant of them, and I can't think who is so... so unfeeling as to
inform you. But since you are informed, at least you should be modestly
blind to things that take place outside the... orbit of a properly
conducted demoiselle."

"Will they still be outside my orbit when I am married?"

"If you are wise. You should remain without knowledge of them. It... it
deflowers your innocence. I would not for the world that M. de La Tour
d'Azyr should know you so extraordinarily instructed. Had you been
properly reared in a convent this would never have happened to you."

"But you do not answer me, madame!" cried Aline in despair. "It is not
my chastity that is in question; but that of M. de La Tour d'Azyr."

"Chastity!" Madame's lips trembled with horror. Horror overspread her
face. "Wherever did you learn that dreadful, that so improper word?"

And then Mme. de Sautron did violence to her feelings. She realized that
here great calm and prudence were required. "My child, since you know so
much that you ought not to know, there can be no harm in my adding that
a gentleman must have these little distractions."

"But why, madame? Why is it so?"

"Ah, mon Dieu, you are asking me riddles of nature. It is so because it
is so. Because men are like that."

"Because men are beasts, you mean--which is what I began by asking you."

"You are incorrigibly stupid, Aline."

"You mean that I do not see things as you do, madame. I am not
over-expectant as you appear to think; yet surely I have the right to
expect that whilst M. de La Tour d'Azyr is wooing me, he shall not be
wooing at the same time a drab of the theatre. I feel that in this there
is