“Well, I know all about it, because I have a maid who used to live in the house where the Beausires live, and who still has friends there. Well, that night the mother-in-law refused to leave her daughter. When the husband arrived, Madame de Beausire sobbed so that she woke the neighbors. Bélan lost his temper, and they had a terrible scene; finally, in a rage, he went to bed in a little closet where they keep coal, and the next morning he came out looking like a coal heaver! Poor fellow! If he doesn’t look out, those two women will shut him up in a foot-warmer, and feed him through the holes when he’s a good boy.--Ha! ha! It is too funny!” said Madame Giraud. “However, I won’t give him a year to be--you know what--and he will well have deserved it.” Monsieur and Madame Giraud took leave of us, renewing the assurances of their friendship, and they probably went about to all their acquaintances to do the same thing. As her pregnancy advanced, my wife felt called upon to attend to a thousand little duties which made it necessary for her to neglect music and painting. Moreover, her health was often poor, and she needed a great deal of rest; the result was that I had much more time to work in my office. Besides, the title of father, which I hoped soon to have, made me reflect more reasonably than I had done for some months past. Although our fortune was large enough for Eugénie and myself, it would cease to be large enough if we should have several children, and on their account it would be well for me to think of increasing it. Bélan made his wedding call with his wife, who had lost none of her stiffness and primness since her marriage. I found that the new husband’s eyes were as red as his mother-in-law’s. Perhaps he too wept sometimes to gratify Madame de Beausire. He was so attentive, so devoted to his Armide, and he waited upon her with such humility, that he seemed like his wife’s servant. We returned their visit ceremoniously, and we did not go again; we remembered their breakfast. Since I had given my attention to business once more and had returned to the practice of my profession, my mother said that we had become reasonable and that I now had the aspect of a married man. I do not know what aspect I may have had, but I know that I considered that we were becoming altogether too sedate; we no longer played together or fooled the time away, as we did in the early days of our marriage.