Entragues was not at all satisfied with the too humorously ironic form which the anecdote took. He decided, in case he ever returned to it with a view of writing, to introduce a more methodical and haughty protestation. The instruction given to young girls did not vex him, but its quality did: they were crammed, like Turkish women, with maize-flour, so as to obtain a forced corpulency, although fine dieting is necessary for those creatures who can so easily be deformed. Neither grammar, nor geography, nor distasteful chronological history, nor practically anything now customary was suitable for women, but only the Old and New Testament, the Life of the Saints, solid mystic readings, then the poets, the romancers of dreams, all that can, in gloomy hours, reflower in the soul, at the call of holy harps, at the summons of kisses of love, under children's caresses. These thoughts accompanied him as far as his home, whither the rain forced him to return. He had not wished to think directly of Sixtine all day, for fear of withering the expected pleasures by a precocious plucking; she had her revenge; although it was long before the hour of the rendezvous, he held her before his eyes, but changing and retreating, like a woman who comes and goes, busied with her toilet, disappearing all white, reappearing clothed in color, a summer landscape whose nuances obey the transparent play of clouds. CHAPTER XXVIII THE ESTHETIC THRILL "Le style est inviolable." Ernest Hello. "Besides, here is the spring, it will enliven me. You will see," said the actor, with a malicious smile. "You will see. I do not detest the country, once in a while. It inspires fresh ideas that sometimes are lucrative. It is like the theater...." "The public seems uneasy," said Sixtine. "One would swear that it does not understand." "While waiting to be shocked. It is permissible to curse gold, not to scorn it. Would you," continued Hubert, "incite men to the mockery of the secret quintessence of their ideal? To scoff at lucre in the theater is to blaspheme God in a church." "Oh! my manner, Monsieur," said the actress, "never signifies anything...." This was taken by Sixtine almost as a personal allusion. She would have liked to hear herself addressed in a phrase which permitted such a reply. All the hypocrisy imposed on women protected in syllables against the stupidity of men who never guess. When she heard: "... Yes ... I believe you have some illusions concerning my true nature...." Her hands came together in a gesture of applause. She, too, was misunderstood; she felt herself capable of using a similar phrase. The audience murmured. "You are mistaken," she told Hubert. "Here is sympathy, if these sounds are, as I believe, a mark of indignation against the impudent foolishness of this man."