“When I was a bachelor I had none but new stockings! I had a clean napkin every day on my plate. The restaurateur only fleeced me of a determinate sum. I have given up to you my beloved liberty! What have you done with it?”
“Am I then so very wrong, Adolphe, to have sought to spare you numerous cares?” says Caroline, taking an attitude before her husband. “Take the key of the money-box back,—but do you know what will happen? I am ashamed, but you will compel me to go on to the stage to get the merest necessaries of life. Is this what you want? Degrade your wife, or bring in conflict two contrary, hostile interests—”
Such, for three quarters of the French people is an exact definition of marriage.
“Be perfectly easy, dear,” resumes Caroline, seating herself in her chair like Marius on the ruins of Carthage, “I will never ask you for anything. I am not a beggar! I know what I’ll do—you don’t know me yet.”
“Well, what will you do?” asks Adolphe; “it seems impossible to joke or have an explanation with you women. What will you do?”
“It doesn’t concern you at all.”
“Excuse me, madame, quite the contrary. Dignity, honor—”
“Oh, have no fear of that, sir. For your sake more than for my own, I will keep it a dead secret.”
“Come, Caroline, my own Carola, what do you mean to do?”
Caroline darts a viper-like glance at Adolphe, who recoils and proceeds to walk up and down the room.