"Monsieur!"

"Madame, I now call you to account, not for my happiness only, but for
my blood--"

At this instant Jules Desmarets approached them.

"What are you saying to my wife, monsieur?"

"Make that inquiry at my own house, monsieur, if you are curious,"
said Maulincour, moving away, and leaving Madame Jules in an almost
fainting condition.

There are few women who have not found themselves, once at least in
their lives, _a propos_ of some undeniable fact, confronted with a
direct, sharp, uncompromising question,--one of those questions
pitilessly asked by husbands, the mere apprehension of which gives a
chill, while the actual words enter the heart like the blade of a
dagger. It is from such crises that the maxim has come, "All women
lie." Falsehood, kindly falsehood, venial falsehood, sublime
falsehood, horrible falsehood,--but always the necessity to lie. This
necessity admitted, ought they not to know how to lie well? French
women do it admirably. Our manners and customs teach them deception!
Besides, women are so naively saucy, so pretty, graceful, and withal
so true in lying,--they recognize so fully the utility of doing so in
order to avoid in social life the violent shocks which happiness might
not resist,--that lying is seen to be as necessary to their lives as
the cotton-wool in which they put away their jewels. Falsehood becomes
to them the foundation of speech; truth is exceptional; they tell it,