"Ah! my dear Noce," said the lady, most affectionately, "how well you are looking! I am delighted to see you."
"I do not doubt it," said Noce "for I have to inform you that your petition is granted; your husband will have the place."
"Oh, how eternally grateful I am to you!" cried the lady, in an ecstasy; "my poor, dear husband will be so rejoiced. I wish I had wings to fly to him!"
The gallant Noce uttered a compliment; I thought myself /de trop/, and moved away. I again encountered Chatran.
"I overheard your conversation with Madame la Marquise," said he, smiling: "she has a bitter tongue; has she not?"
"Very! how she abused the poor rogue Noce!"
"Yes, and yet he is her lover!"
"Her lover!—you astonish me: why, she seemed almost fond of her husband; the tears came in her eyes when she spoke of him."
"She is fond of him!" said Chatran, dryly. "She loves the ground he treads on: it is precisely for that reason she favours Noce; she is never happy but when she is procuring something /pour son cher bon mari/. She goes to spend a week at Noce's country-house, and writes to her husband, with a pen dipped in her blood, saying, 'My /heart/ is with thee!'"
"Certainly," said I, "France is the land of enigmas; the sphynx must have been a /Parisienne/. And when Jupiter made man, he made two natures utterly distinct from one another. One was /Human nature/, and the other /French nature/!"