“But I mean an unmarried woman, like Mademoiselle Rogron, for instance?”
“Oh, that’s another thing,” said Monsieur Martener. “Successful childbirth is then one of those miracles which God sometimes allows himself, but rarely.”
“Why?” asked Celeste.
The doctor answered with a terrifying pathological description; he explained that the elasticity given by nature to youthful muscles and bones did not exist at a later age, especially in women whose lives were sedentary.
“So you think that an unmarried woman ought not to marry after forty?”
“Not unless she waits some years,” replied the doctor. “But then, of course, it is not marriage, it is only an association of interests.”
The result of the interview, clearly, seriously, scientifically and sensibly stated, was that an unmarried woman would make a great mistake in marrying after forty. When the doctor had departed Mademoiselle Celeste found Sylvie in a frightful state, green and yellow, and with the pupils of her eyes dilated.
“Then you really love the colonel?” asked Celeste.
“I still hoped,” replied Sylvie.
“Well, then, wait!” cried Mademoiselle Habert, Jesuitically, aware that time would rid her of the colonel.