A WOMAN ABOUT WHOM THERE IS A GOOD DEAL OF SCANDAL. Caroline is kind and obliging, and never talks scandal of anybody.
A YOUNG LADY, returning to her place after a dance. Don't you remember how tiresome she was when she visited the Deschars?
MADAME DE FISCHTAMINEL. Oh! She and her husband were two bundles of briars—continually quarreling. [She goes away.]
AN ARTIST. I hear that the individual known as Deschars is getting dissipated: he goes round town—
A WOMAN, alarmed at the turn the conversation is taking, as her daughter can hear. Madame de Fischtaminel is charming, this evening.
A WOMAN OF FORTY, without employment. Monsieur Adolphe appears to be as happy as his wife.
A YOUNG LADY. Oh! what a sweet man Monsieur Ferdinand is! [Her mother reproves her by a sharp nudge with her foot.] What's the matter, mamma?
HER MOTHER, looking at her fixedly. A young woman should not speak so, my dear, of any one but her betrothed, and Monsieur Ferdinand is not a marrying man.
A LADY DRESSED RATHER LOW IN THE NECK, to another lady dressed equally low, in a whisper. The fact is, my dear, the moral of all this is that there are no happy couples but couples of four.
A FRIEND, whom the author was so imprudent as to consult. Those last words are false.