she replied.

Then, with that feminine craft which always slightly degrades virtue,
Madame Jules waited for another question. Her husband turned his face
back to the houses, and continued his study of their walls. Another
question would imply suspicion, distrust. To suspect a woman is a
crime in love. Jules had already killed a man for doubting his wife.
Clemence did not know all there was of true passion, of loyal
reflection, in her husband's silence; just as Jules was ignorant of
the generous drama that was wringing the heart of his Clemence.

The carriage rolled on through a silent Paris, bearing the couple,
--two lovers who adored each other, and who, gently leaning on the
same silken cushion, were being parted by an abyss. In these elegant
coupes returning from a ball between midnight and two in the morning,
how many curious and singular scenes must pass,--meaning those coupes
with lanterns, which light both the street and the carriage, those
with their windows unshaded; in short, legitimate coupes, in which
couples can quarrel without caring for the eyes of pedestrians,
because the civil code gives a right to provoke, or beat, or kiss, a
wife in a carriage or elsewhere, anywhere, everywhere! How many
secrets must be revealed in this way to nocturnal pedestrians,--to
those young fellows who have gone to a ball in a carriage, but are
obliged, for whatever cause it may be, to return on foot. It was the
first time that Jules and Clemence had been together thus,--each in a
corner; usually the husband pressed close to his wife.

"It is very cold," remarked Madame Jules.

But her husband did not hear her; he was studying the signs above the