"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.
"There now, tell me, what will you do?" he repeats after much too prolonged a silence.
"I shall go to work, sir!"
At this sublime declaration, Adolphe executes a movement in retreat, detecting a bitter exasperation, and feeling the sharpness of a north wind which had never before blown in the matrimonial chamber.