Madame Marmus's escort, said to herself:

"Poor Madame! He must be her nephew."

Madame Marmus, a little woman, lithe, graceful, mirthful, was
divinely dressed and in a fashion too young for her age, counting her
twenty-five years as a wife. Nevertheless, she wore well a gown with
small pink stripes, a cape embroidered and edged with lace, boots pretty
as the wings of a butterfly. She carried in her hand a pink hat with
peach flowers.

"You see, Madame Adolphe," she said, "my hair is all uncurled. I told
you that in this hot weather it should be dressed in bandeaux."

"Madame," the servant replied, "Monsieur is very sick. You let him eat
too much."

"What could I do?" Madame Marmus replied. "He was at one end of the
table and I at the other. He returned without me, as his habit is!
Poor little man! I will go to him as soon as I change my dress."

Madame Adolphe returns to the pavilion to propose an emetic, and
scolds the professor for not having returned with Madame Marmus.

"Since you wished to come in a cab, you might have spared me the
expense of the one that Madame Marmus took. The charge for your cab
was an hour. Did you stop anywhere?"

"At the Institute," he replied.