“Then you have taught your husband to treat you as if you were either a simpleton or a spoiled child, to whom he yields for the sake of peace, while he loses all respect for your understanding.”
“Theodor,” said Madame Berger, with a slightly scornful laugh, “I advise you to keep your opinions on such subjects in future until you are asked for them. You are talking of what you do not understand. Crescenz is about to marry a man thirty years older than herself—I have done the same, and speak from experience. Had I married a man of my own age, the case and my advice would have been different. For instance, had I married you, I should have been quite a different person.”
“I don’t think you would, Caroline—nothing would have made you other than you are.”
“Am I not very charming as I am?”
“Charming? Yes, with all your levity—but too charming,” said Mr. Biedermann, preparing to leave the room.
“Well, for that acknowledgment I am inclined to pardon your former impertinence; but never while you live attempt a repetition of the offence.”
“I thought our former intimacy gave me a sort of right to——”
“Our former intimacy,” said Madame Berger, laughing, “gives you no right excepting that of being my very obedient humble servant.”