white trellis-work of linen was stamped upon your skin, you traced
with your eyes the green paper which covered the walls of your silent
chamber? Do you recollect, I say, seeing some one noiselessly open
your door, exhibiting her fair young face, framed with rolls of gold,
and a bonnet which you had never seen before? She seemed like a star
in a stormy night, smiling and stealing towards you with an expression
in which distress and happiness were blended, and flinging herself
into your arms!

"How did you manage it? What did you tell your husband?" you ask.

"Your husband!"--Ah! this brings us back again into the depths of our
subject.


XV.
Morally the man is more often and longer a man than the woman is a
women.


On the other hand we ought to consider that among these two millions
of celibates there are many unhappy men, in whom a profound sense of
their misery and persistent toil have quenched the instinct of love;

That they have not all passed through college, that there are many
artisans among them, many footmen--the Duke of Gevres, an extremely
plain and short man, as he walked through the park of Versailles saw
several lackeys of fine appearance and said to his friends, "Look how
these fellows are made by us, and how they imitate us"--that there are
many contractors, many trades people who think of nothing but money;