"Mon Dieu! I should die if I were alone a single day!" "So you don't like reading?" "Yes, I do, for a moment or two, in bed; but not long at a time; it tires me." "And music?" "I play and sing only when someone is listening to me." "Drawing?" "Oh! that was all right at boarding-school! I mean to have a little theatre on my estate, and we will have theatricals there; that's great fun. I used to act often at boarding-school. I was particularly fond of the parts in which I changed dresses." "What a child you are!" "What would you have? one must pass the time somehow. If I had nothing but my husband to amuse me, great heaven! where should we be? A man who thinks of nothing but figures and exchange and heaven knows what. These business men are very disagreeable." The ladies, having turned into another path, found themselves in the neighborhood of Monsieur Monin, who had stopped and seemed to be in a sort of trance before a plum tree laden with very large fruit. At sight of the ladies he took off his hat and muttered: "How's your--" But he did not finish the sentence, because he remembered that he had already paid his respects to them in the salon; so he turned and pointed to the tree, saying: "That tree bears very fine fruit." "Why, my dear, you don't mean that you have fruit trees in your garden?" cried the petite-maîtresse; "why, that's the worst possible form; you must take them all away and set out in their place ebony-trees, acacias, and sycamores." "Oh! our garden makes no pretensions," rejoined Madame Destival, biting her lips with anger; "it isn't a park such as you have on your place, and Monsieur Destival is very fond of fruit." "He is quite right," said Monin, who had walked nearer to the plum tree when Madame de la Thomassinière spoke of taking it up. "Fruit is the body's friend when it's good and ripe. But I was just going to say----" "And monsieur's plums!" continued the younger woman. "Dear, dear! they are very vulgar; they should be left for the servants." "Oh! when Monsieur Destival has made a fortune, then we will have a separate orchard; but meanwhile we are simple enough to be content with a small country place. What would you have? We were not born in a palace--in the lap of grandeur." Madame Destival uttered these last words with malicious emphasis; but Madame de la Thomassinière seemed to pay no heed to them; as hare-brained as she was inconsequent, she said offensive things unintentionally; and if she talked constantly of her dresses, her diamonds and her estate, it was less from vanity than as a matter of habit, whereas the wish to make a show of his wealth was the motive behind every act of her husband. "Luncheon is waiting, mesdames," said Monsieur Destival, hastening forward gallantly to offer his arm to the petite-maîtresse; "come; it is late, and you must be hungry. Faith, if Dalville comes, he will have to eat alone, that's all there is about it."