ey
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, without doubt, be shamel