subject of conversation.

Robert started to reassure her, asserting that he had known a lady who
had subsisted upon nougat during the entire--but seeing the color mount
into Mrs. Pontellier's face he checked himself and changed the subject.

Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly
at home in the society of Creoles; never before had she been thrown so
intimately among them. There were only Creoles that summer at Lebrun's.
They all knew each other, and felt like one large family, among
whom existed the most amicable relations. A characteristic which
distinguished them and which impressed Mrs. Pontellier most forcibly
was their entire absence of prudery. Their freedom of expression was
at first incomprehensible to her, though she had no difficulty in
reconciling it with a lofty chastity which in the Creole woman seems to
be inborn and unmistakable.

Never would Edna Pontellier forget the shock with which she heard Madame
Ratignolle relating to old Monsieur Farival the harrowing story of one
of her accouchements, withholding no intimate detail. She was growing
accustomed to like shocks, but she could not keep the mounting color
back from her cheeks. Oftener than once her coming had interrupted the
droll story with which Robert was entertaining some amused group of
married women.

A book had gone the rounds of the pension. When it came her turn to read
it, she did so with profound astonishment. She felt moved to read the
book in secret and solitude, though none of the others had done so,--to
hide it from view at the sound of approaching footsteps. It was openly
criticised and freely discussed at table. Mrs. Pontellier gave over