"And I, in turn, beg that you will attend to this shopping yourself, my dear Alexandre. If you will, I'll promise to drive with you in the Bois this evening. We won't go until after dark, so I shall only have to put on a hat and mantle."
"But this is the day of Madame de Mirecourt's reception. She has called on you twice, and you have never set foot in her house, so you really must do me the favour to go there this evening."
"Make an evening toilet? Oh, no, indeed. It is entirely too much trouble."
"That is not the question. One must fulfil one's duties to society, so you will accompany me to Madame de Mirecourt's this evening."
"Society can do without me just as well as I can do without society. Society bores me. I shall not go to Madame de Mirecourt's."
"Yes, you will."
"When I say no, I mean no."
"Zounds, madame—"
"My dear, as I have told you very often, I married so I might get out of the convent, so I might lie in bed as late as I chose in the morning, so I might get rid of lessons, and so I might do nothing as long and as much as I pleased,—so I might be my own mistress, in short."
"You are talking and reasoning like a child,—and like an utterly spoiled child."