You can safely admit the truth and let me see to the depths of your heart; we are partners, not lovers.

If I show some tenderness at times, you are too superior a woman to pay any attention to such follies; you will forgive me,--you are not a school-girl, or a bourgeoise of the rue Saint-Denis.

Bah! you and I are too well brought up for that.

There's the Marquise d'Espard who has just left the room; this is precisely what she thinks and does.

She and I came to an understanding two years ago [the coxcomb!], and now she has only to write me a line and say, 'My dear des Lupeaulx, you will oblige me by doing such and such a thing,' and it is done at once.