cook, no kitchen, an old manservant to wait upon him, and no pretence
of permanence. In her opinion, any other sort of establishment is bad
form. Godefroid de Beaudenord, faithful to this programme, lodged on
an entresol on the Quai Malaquais; he had, however, been obliged to
have this much in common with married couples, he had put a bedstead
in his room, though for that matter it was so narrow that he seldom
slept in it. An Englishwoman might have visited his rooms and found
nothing 'improper' there. Finot, you have yet to learn the great law
of the 'Improper' that rules Britain. But, for the sake of the bond
between us--that bill for a thousand francs--I will just give you some
idea of it. I have been in England myself.--I will give him wit enough
for a couple of thousand," he added in an aside to Blondet.

"In England, Finot, you grow extremely intimate with a woman in the
course of an evening, at a ball or wherever it is; next day you meet
her in the street and look as though you knew her again--'improper.'
--At dinner you discover a delightful man beneath your left-hand
neighbor's dresscoat; a clever man; no high mightiness, no constraint,
nothing of an Englishman about him. In accordance with the tradition
of French breeding, so urbane, so gracious as they are, you address
your neighbor--'improper.'--At a ball you walk up to a pretty woman to
ask her to dance--'improper.' You wax enthusiastic, you argue, laugh,
and give yourself out, you fling yourself heart and soul into the
conversation, you give expression to your real feelings, you play when
you are at the card-table, chat while you chat, eat while you eat
--'improper! improper! improper!' Stendhal, one of the cleverest and
profoundest minds of the age, hit off the 'improper' excellently well
when he said that such-and-such a British peer did not dare to cross
his legs when he sat alone before his own hearth for fear of being
improper. An English gentlewoman, were she one of the rabid 'Saints'