THIRD ACT. As the curtain rises, the stage represents a chamber in a state of extreme disorder. Adolphe, in his dressing gown, tries to go out furtively and without waking Caroline, who is sleeping profoundly, and finally does go out.
Caroline, exceedingly happy, gets up, consults her mirror, and makes inquiries about breakfast. An hour afterward, when she is ready she learns that breakfast is served.
“Tell monsieur.”
“Madame, he is in the little parlor.”
“What a nice man he is,” she says, going up to Adolphe, and talking the babyish, caressing language of the honey-moon.
“What for, pray?”
“Why, to let his little Liline ride the horsey.”
OBSERVATION. During the honey-moon, some few married couples,—very young ones,—make use of languages, which, in ancient days, Aristotle classified and defined. (See his Pedagogy.) Thus they are perpetually using such terminations as lala, nana, coachy-poachy, just as mothers and nurses use them to babies. This is one of the secret reasons, discussed and recognized in big quartos by the Germans, which determined the Cabires, the creators of the Greek mythology, to represent Love as a child. There are other reasons very well known to women, the principal of which is, that, in their opinion, love in men is always small.
“Where did you get that idea, my sweet? You must have dreamed it!”
“What!”