I have burned my ships," she added, smiling.

"But you are not as frank with me as I have been with you." "You would not listen to me if I were," he replied, with a melancholy air, in spite of the deep inward satisfaction her remarks gave him.
"What would such future promotions avail me, if you dismiss me now ?" "Before I listen to you," she replied, with naive Parisian liveliness, "we must be able to understand each other." And she left the old fop to go and speak with Madame de Chessel, a countess from the provinces, who seemed about to take leave.
"That is a very extraordinary woman," said des Lupeaulx to himself.

"I don't know my own self when I am with her." Accordingly, this man of no principle, who six years earlier had kept a ballet-girl, and who now, thanks to his position, made himself a seraglio with the pretty wives of the under-clerks, and lived in the world of journalists and actresses, became devotedly attentive all the evening to Celestine, and was the last to leave the house.
"At last!" thought Madame Rabourdin, as she undressed that night, "we have the place! Twelve thousand francs a year and perquisites, beside the rents of our farms at Grajeux,--nearly twenty thousand francs a year.

It is not affluence, but at least it isn't poverty.".