No doubt, their wives, having put the children to bed, had some words with the servant over the daily account of money spent, and put on a clean night-gown (of a wretchedly bad cut, by the way), say their prayers and lay themselves down to sleep under the red woolen coverlet, thinking all the time: "How late he always returns after these meetings!" or else she may bite her nails with fury, revolving in her mind the idea of another angry scene with her husband—a scene foredoomed as heretofore to be without effect. Or again, in agonized resignation, she may bend over the baby's cradle, and murmur mournfully, with naive pathos: "For your sake, my child!" And the girls whose troths are plighted have long ago gone to sleep under the wing of their domestic guardians, lulled to slumber with some such sweet fancies as: "Most men have intrigues before they marry: he, and he alone, has surely none." And so forth. …
They are foolish—but fortunate, because not allowed to come in here.
Ah! once upon a time, in the days of my childish marvellings, how bitterly did I weep over all these things!
