Monseigneur, in point of fact, seemed put out by the circumstance that these ladies manifested so little intelligence. As if, a shrugging Aluys demanded of Heaven’s common-sense, it were not for the benefit of humanity at large that all beautiful women were created a trifle stupid. The ladies whom one most naturally desired to seduce were thus made the most apt to listen to the seducer: for the good God planned the greatest good for the greatest number. When February had come, and Florian might hope to share with Melior only three more months of happiness, Florian sent a letter to his wife to bewail the necessity of his remaining away from home until March. The rumors as to his doings were now less colorful but equally incredible. Yet nothing certainly was known of his pursuits, beyond the fact that Aluys reported they were evoking the dead persons who had been most famed for holiness and other admirable virtues. And with these also Monsieur de Puysange seemed unaccountably disappointed. For he seemed, Aluys lamented, really not to have comprehended that when men perform high actions or voice impressive sentiments, this is by ordinary the affair of a few moments in a life of which the remainder is much like the living of all other persons. Monsieur de Puysange appeared to have believed that famous captains won seven battles every week, that authentic poets conversed in hexameters, and that profound sages did not think far less frequently about philosophy than their family affairs. As if too, Aluys cried out, it were not very pleasant to know the littlenesses of the great and the frailties of the most admirable! Æschylus had confessed to habitual drunkenness, the prophet Moses stuttered, and Charlemagne told how terribly he had suffered with bunions. Monsieur de Puysange ought to be elated by securing these valuable bits of historical information, but, to the contrary, they seemed to depress him. He regretted, one judged, that his colloquies with the renowned dead revealed that human history had been shaped and guided by human beings. A romantic! was Aluys’ verdict: and you cannot cure that. The gentleman will have an unhappy life. “His wives die quickly,” was hazarded. “They would,” Aluys returned: “and it makes for the benefit of all parties.” Upon the first day of March, when Florian could hope at most to share only two more months of happiness with Melior, Florian sent a letter to his wife announcing the postponement until April of his homecoming. And throughout this month too he lived in equal mystery, except that toward the end of March he entertained a party of young persons at a supper followed by the debauch just then most fashionable, a fête d’Adam.