a gallant conquest. I was saying that as if it were
the simplest and most natural thing in the world. The
brougham rolled on speedily, lightly, bounding on its
springs, and my hackney coach followed it with difficulty.
"Faster!" I gave the order, "faster, and get ahead of it!"
The driver lashed his horse, which started into a gallop, and in a few seconds the wheels of the two carriages touched each other. Then a woman's head, with dishevelled hair under a very large hat, with a nose comically turned up, with lips cracked from the excessive use of paint and crimson like a living flesh wound, appeared in the frame of the coach door. With a scornful glance, she took in the driver, the cab, the horse and myself, put out her tongue and then withdrew into a corner of her carriage. It was not Juliette! I did not come home until night, very much disappointed and yet delighted with my useless drive!
I had no plans for the evening. Still I spent more than the usual time in dressing myself. I did it with the greatest care, and, for the first time, the knot of my cravat seemed to me a matter of great importance, and I was very much absorbed in the process of tying it carefully. This unexpected discovery brought in its train others equally important. For example, I noticed that my shirt was ill cut, that the shirt front wrinkled disgracefully at the opening of the vest; that my dress coat looked very old and curiously out of style. In a word, I thought I looked very ridiculous and promised myself to change all that in the future. Without making elegant appearance an exacting and tyrannical law of my life, it was quite permissible, I thought, to look like the rest of the people. Simply because one dressed well, one was not necessarily a fool.
