"I had almost forgotten one important point in our hypothesis. The young wife must have a virtuous temperament, without coldness, but also without sensual curiosity; a good reproducing animal, apt in the pleasure of conceiving rather than in the pleasure of love-making; one of those who, after having been blushing brides, become loving mothers. If he falls on some rebellious woman he is lost. If the instrument which he has to tune and render sensitive gives out no sound or false notes he will lose courage and return to his old concerts. But if, by chance, his wife should reveal herself as a creature of voluptuousness, his perdition would be still more certain: Hervart would flare up like a faggot and nothing but a handful of ashes would be left. I am not speaking of the adultery which would, in these last two cases be inevitable. Sometimes it has the effect of re-establishing the balance in a dislocated household; there are excellent conjugal associations in which each party has his or her ideal down town, in a different quarter of the city. But this is a matter of sociology and doesn't interest me. I remain in my domain, which is the human body, its functions, its anomalies. I may add that it is by their ignorance of it that the sociologists think of such nonsense as they do. They are still hard at work--the idiots!--reasoning about averages, they never come down to reality, to the individual. How it is despised, this human body of ours! And yet it is the only truth, the only beauty, just as it is the only ideal and the only poetry...." Bouret was inclined to philosophise. His letters almost always passed the range of his correspondents' comprehension. He saw that himself, when he re-read them, and smiled. All that M. Des Boys understood in his friend's dissertation was the passage which concerned Hervart; but that he understood very well. Bouret's reticences produced their ordinary effect: Hervart was considered as a man incapable, condemned without reprieve. "He's a madman. What does he mean by going and captivating a young girl's heart when he isn't sure of being able to make a wife of her! The Lord knows, women aren't angels; they have corpora! sensations; and then maternity, maternity...." M. Des Boys confided to himself all the scabrous or moral banalities that such a subject could make him think of. Meanwhile, he examined his daughter. "How shall I explain this to her? I shall make her mother do it." He continued his meditations; and sometimes he would smile at the evocation of foolish fancies, sometimes his brows contracted and he would feel a mixture of anxiety and anger. Rose was also reading: