"With your family you can speak quite freely," my mother replied.

"Very well, then," I went on. "The young men I have met so far strike
me as too self-centered to excite interest in others; they are much
more taken up with themselves than with their company. They can't be
accused of lack of candor at any rate. They put on a certain
expression to talk to us, and drop it again in a moment, apparently
satisfied that we don't use our eyes. The man as he converses is the
lover; silent, he is the husband. The girls, again, are so artificial
that it is impossible to know what they really are, except from the
way they dance; their figures and movements alone are not a sham. But
what has alarmed me most in this fashionable society is its brutality.
The little incidents which take place when supper is announced give
one some idea--to compare small things with great--of what a popular
rising might be. Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general
selfishness. I imagined society very different. Women count for little
in it; that may perhaps be a survival of Bonapartist ideas."

"Armande is coming on extraordinarily," said my mother.

"Mother, did you think I should never get beyond asking to see Mme. de
Stael?"

My father smiled, and rose from the table.

Saturday.

My dear, I have left one thing out. Here is the tidbit I have reserved
for you. The love which we pictured must be extremely well hidden; I