"Madame, I have been living on milk for the last three years."

"Oh! Indeed!" she said again.

Can any one imagine three human beings as astonished as we were to
find ourselves gathered together? The husband looked at me with a
supercilious air, and I paid him back with a look of audacity.

Madame de T----- smiled at me and was charming to me; Monsieur de
T----- accepted me as a necessary evil. Never in all my life have I
taken part in a dinner which was so odd as that. The dinner ended, I
thought that we would go to bed early--that is, I thought that
Monsieur de T----- would. As we entered the drawing-room:

"I appreciate, madame," said he, "your precaution in bringing this
gentleman with you. You judged rightly that I should be but poor
company for the evening, and you have done well, for I am going to
retire."

Then turning to me, he added in a tone of profound sarcasm:

"You will please to pardon me, and obtain also pardon from madame."

He left us. My reflections? Well, the reflections of a twelvemonth
were then comprised in those of a minute. When we were left alone,
Madame de T----- and I, we looked at each other so curiously that, in
order to break through the awkwardness, she proposed that we should
take a turn on the terrace while we waited, as she said, until the
servants had supped.