Of course I
don't expect you, just at first, to feel the difference, to
see the nuance. In the case of little Madame de
Vireville, for instance: you point out that she's still
under her husband's roof. Very true; and if she were merely
a Paris acquaintance--especially if you had met her, as one
still might, in the RIGHT KIND of house in Paris--I
should be the last to object to your visiting her. But in
the country it's different. Even the best provincial
society is what you would call narrow: I don't deny it; and
if some of our friends met Madame de Vireville at Givre--
well, it would produce a bad impression. You're inclined to
ridicule such considerations, but gradually you'll come to
see their importance; and meanwhile, do trust me when I ask
you to be guided by my mother. It is always well for a
stranger in an old society to err a little on the side of
what you call its prejudices but I should rather describe as
its traditions."
After that she no longer tried to laugh or argue her husband
out of his convictions. They WERE convictions, and
therefore unassailable. Nor was any insincerity implied in
the fact that they sometimes seemed to coincide with hers.
There were occasions when he really did look at things as
she did; but for reasons so different as to make the
distance between them all the greater. Life, to Mr. Leath,
was like a walk through a carefully classified museum,
where, in moments of doubt, one had only to look at the
number and refer to one's catalogue; to his wife it was like
groping about in a huge dark lumber-room where the exploring
ray of curiosity lit up now some shape of breathing beauty
and now a mummy's grin.
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