the world is audacious and satirical. There are so few judges who
would not gladly have committed the fault against which they hurl the
rather stolid thunders of their "Inasmuch." The world, which gives the
lie to the law alike in its rejoicings, in its habits, and in its
pleasures, is severer than the Code and the Church; the world punishes
a blunder after encouraging hypocrisy. The whole economy of the law on
marriage seems to me to require reconstruction from the bottom to the
top. The French law would be perfect perhaps if it excluded daughters
from inheriting.'

"'We three among us know the question very thoroughly,' said the
Comte de Grandville with a laugh. 'I have a wife I cannot live with.
Serizy has a wife who will not live with him. As for you, Octave,
yours ran away from you. So we three represent every case of the
conjugal conscience, and, no doubt, if ever divorce is brought in
again, we shall form the committee.'

"Octave's fork dropped on his glass, broke it, and broke his plate. He
had turned as pale as death, and flashed a thunderous glare at M. de
Grandville, by which he hinted at my presence, and which I caught.

"'Forgive me, my dear fellow. I did not see Maurice,' the President
went on. 'Serizy and I, after being the witnesses to your marriage,
became your accomplices; I did not think I was committing an
indiscretion in the presence of these two venerable priests.'

"M. de Serizy changed the subject by relating all he had done to
please his wife without ever succeeding. The old man concluded that it
was impossible to regulate human sympathies and antipathies; he
maintained that social law was never more perfect than when it was