start aside like a steam engine wrecked by an obstacle. The strategies
of love, the coquetting which form half the composition of a Parisian
woman, are utterly unknown here."

"That is true," said Lousteau. "There is in a country-bred woman's
heart a store of surprises, as in some toys."

"Dear me!" Dinah went on, "a woman will have spoken to you three times
in the course of a winter, and without your knowing it, you will be
lodged in her heart. Then comes a picnic, an excursion, what not, and
all is said--or, if you prefer it, all is done! This conduct, which
seems odd to unobserving persons, is really very natural. A poet, such
as you are, or a philosopher, an observer, like Doctor Bianchon,
instead of vilifying the provincial woman and believing her depraved,
would be able to guess the wonderful unrevealed poetry, every chapter,
in short, of the sweet romance of which the last phrase falls to the
benefit of some happy sub-lieutenant or some provincial bigwig."

"The provincial women I have met in Paris," said Lousteau, "were, in
fact, rapid in their proceedings--"

"My word, they are strange," said the lady, giving a significant shrug
of her shoulders.

"They are like the playgoers who book for the second performance,
feeling sure that the piece will not fail," replied the journalist.

"And what is the cause of all these woes?" asked Bianchon.

"Paris is the monster that brings us grief," replied the Superior