“Ah! here is Monsieur Blémont! I have brought madame home; she deigned to accept my arm. Good-night, madame; pray receive my respects.” He bowed and walked away; I do not know whether I made any answer to him. I pushed my wife into the house and we went upstairs without exchanging a word. When we reached our apartment, madame entered her bedroom, and I followed her. I paced the floor a long while without speaking. I wanted to see whether she would ask me about my son, for she must have guessed that I had been to Livry. But she did not say a word; she simply began to arrange her hair in curl papers. I could stand it no longer. I went to her and said: “Where have you been to-day, madame?” “Why, wherever I chose, monsieur. I believe that I am not in the habit of asking you where you go!” “That is no argument, madame, and I have the right to ask you for an account of your actions.” “Oho! a right! I had that right too, but when I undertook to exert it, it did not succeed!” “I don’t know what you mean, madame. However, you do not answer my question.” “I have been to dine with Madame Dorcelles; there was no mystery about it; I told the nurse, and I thought that you would call there for me.” “You could not think that I would go to the house of a woman whom I do not like; and you must have known too that you would not please me by dining with this Madame Dorcelles, who has the reputation of being a flirt and not a respectable mother of a family.” “Reputation! Was it Madame Ernest who told you that Laure was a flirt?” “Madame Ernest never speaks ill of anyone.” “She has her reasons for that.” “For heaven’s sake, let us drop Madame Ernest, whom I almost never see.” “Oh! that is a matter of indifference to me now.” “I can well believe it; you have other things to occupy your mind.” “What do you mean by that, monsieur?” “If you should find me escorting a woman home as I just now found you with Monsieur Dulac, I should like to know what you would say?” “Mon Dieu! do you mean to say that you are jealous, you, monsieur, who considered it so absurd that I should be?” “Without being jealous, madame, I may look to it that you do not expose yourself to malicious gossip.” “Oh! I am obliged to you, monsieur, but I am old enough to know how to behave.” “You are becoming most peculiar, Eugénie; I don’t know whose advice you are following, but I cannot believe that you act thus of your own accord; I doubt, however, whether this new method of treating me will make either of us happy. Upon my word, I do not recognize you.” “I have said that of you for a very long time, monsieur!” “I can understand your not being the same to me; but with your children! Why, you have not asked me anything about our son!” “Could I guess that you had been to see him?” “You leave little Henriette here, you abandon her to the care of a maid!” “As if one could always drag a child about, when one goes into society!”