enjoined silence with a wave of her hand, which she obeyed by a
survival of habit, and her mother went on in harsh tones: "Don't talk
to me about the man! He never set foot in church excepting to see you
and to be married. People without religion are capable of anything.
Did Guillaume ever dream of hiding anything from me, of spending three
days without saying a word to me, and of chattering afterwards like a
blind magpie?"

"My dear mother, you judge superior people too severely. If their
ideas were the same as other folks', they would not be men of genius."

"Very well, then let men of genius stop at home and not get married.
What! A man of genius is to make his wife miserable? And because he is
a genius it is all right! Genius, genius! It is not so very clever to
say black one minute and white the next, as he does, to interrupt
other people, to dance such rigs at home, never to let you know which
foot you are to stand on, to compel his wife never to be amused unless
my lord is in gay spirits, and to be dull when he is dull."

"But, mother, the very nature of such imaginations----"

"What are such 'imaginations'?" Madame Guillaume went on, interrupting
her daughter again. "Fine ones his are, my word! What possesses a man
that all on a sudden, without consulting a doctor, he takes it into
his head to eat nothing but vegetables? If indeed it were from
religious motives, it might do him some good--but he has no more
religion than a Huguenot. Was there ever a man known who, like him,
loved horses better than his fellow-creatures, had his hair curled
like a heathen, laid statues under muslin coverlets, shut his shutters
in broad day to work by lamp-light? There, get along; if he were not