To complete the exotic air of the place, know that all husbands are jealous, or, at least, so they say, and it must be supposed there is some foundation for the statement. As far as I was able to judge, they are as amiable as their wives, and appear by no means to harbour tragic intentions towards any man likely to arouse their resentment. No. But if by chance, after dinner, you remain chatting quietly with one or two ladies, and in the inevitable ebb and flow of a _salon_ you find yourself for a moment left alone with one, be sure that her husband, more genial than ever, will promptly appear on the scene to claim his share in the talk. At home this would appear strange, since we do not impose the spectacle of our private intimacies upon the public. Yet may not this very air of detachment upon which we insist lead, both in public and in private, to some of the tragedies of life? Is it wrong for a married couple to love each other? And when two hearts are united in this way how can a feeling so powerful fail at times to betray itself by some outward manifestation? Let us take heed lest, in laughing at others, we denounce ourselves. A man in a very high position, who is the father of a lad of twenty, volunteered to me the information that in the whole course of his married life he had nothing to reproach himself with, and that if by some misfortune he had transgressed the marriage law, he should have considered himself wholly unworthy of the woman who had given her whole life to him. No doubt the woman in question, who happened to be standing near us as we talked, fully merited his homage. Yet I wondered, as I listened to his noble and simple speech, whether one could find many Frenchmen to make in all candour such a confidence to a perfect stranger, or, supposing one found such a one, could he say as much without an embarrassed blush? Whatever may be the secret opinion of my reader, I hope he will agree with me in thinking that the advantage in this delicate matter is decidedly on the side of the Argentino, whose sane morality is the best of auguries for the community he is trying to found.
I should like to say something about the Argentine girl. The difficulty is that I never saw her. Every one knows that in North America the young girl is the principal social institution. She has got herself so much talked about that neither Europe nor Asia can help knowing her. In Argentine society, as in France and in Latin countries generally, the young girl is a cipher. She may be seen, no doubt, in the home, at concerts, where she figures in large numbers for the satisfaction of our eyes, at Palermo, at the Tigre,[18] and the Ice Palace--very respectable--where she skates under her mother's eyes, and, finally, at balls, whose joys and special rites are the same the world over. But all this does not make of the South American girl an element of conversation and social doings as in the United States. She remains on the edge of society until the day of her marriage. At the same time, the Argentine girl must not be supposed to resemble very closely her sister in Latin Europe. Less educated, perhaps, but more vivacious and less timidly reserved, she shows greater independence, they tell me, at Mar del Plata, which is the sole common meeting-ground for wealthier families, since the Pampas offer no resource outside the _estancia_.[19] At the Colon Theatre and at the Opera she is seated well in view in front of the box, making the whole ground floor an immense basket of beribboned flowers, and there, under the eye of her parents, the young men who are friends of her family are permitted to pay their respects to her. Must it be confessed? It is said that she makes use of borrowed charms, applied with puff and pencil, following in this the example of her who should rather prevent than abet? This must, however, be libel, for whenever I ventured a query on the point, I was met with a shrug of the shoulders and a burst of laughter. In such a case, the man who can laugh sees always more than smoke.