'Hymen and things hymenaeal!' he said, laughing at himself for resuming
the offence on the apology for it. 'I could talk with interest of a
trousseau. I have debated in my mind with parliamentary acrimony about a
choice of wedding-presents. As she is legally free to bestow her hand on
me--and only a brute's horns could contest the fact--she may decide to be
married the day after to-morrow, and get the trousseau in Paris. She has
a turn for startling. I can imagine that if I proposed a run for it she
would be readier to spring to be on the road with me than in acquiescing
in a quiet arrangement about a ceremonial day; partly because, in the
first case, she would throw herself and the rest of the adventure on me,
at no other cost than the enjoyment of one of her impulses; and in the
second, because she is a girl who would require a full band of the best
Berlin orchestra in perpetual play to keep up her spirits among her
people during the preparations for espousing a democrat, demagogue, and
Jew, of a presumed inferior station by birth to her own. Give Momus a
sister, Clotilde is the lady! I know her. I would undertake to put a
spell on her and keep her contented on a frontier--not Russian, any
barbarous frontier where there is a sun. She must have sun. One might
wrap her in sables, but sun is best. She loves it best, though she looks
remarkably well in sables. Never shall I forget . . . she is
frileuse, and shivers into them! There are Frenchmen who could paint it
--only Frenchmen. Our artists, no. She is very French. Born in France
she would have been a matchless Parisienne. Oh! she's a riddle of
course. I don't pretend to spell every letter of her. The returning of
my presents is odd. No, I maintain that she is a coward acting under
domination, and there's no other way of explaining the puzzle. I was out
of sight, they bullied her, and she yielded--bewilderingly, past
comprehension it seems--cat!--until you remember what she's made of:
she's a reed. Now I reappear armed with powers to give her a free