eleven
o'clock
Before so many persons I could not avoid the display of this fresh exhibition of hypocrisy . With her dry and white hand she squeezed mine so hard as to pain me , and said , in a whisper , and in a tone as gentle as it was perfidious , these words , which I never can forget : ` Think of me sometimes in the midst of your bliss , for it was I who arranged your marriage . ' Alas , I was far from comprehending at that moment the full force of those words ! Our marriage took place at eleven o'clock , and we immediately entered our carriage , followed by my waiting-woman and the old _ valet de chambre _ of M. d'Harville 's , and we travelled so rapidly that we reached Paris before ten o'clock in the evening . I should have been surprised at the silence and melancholy of M. d'Harville had I not known that he had what he termed his happy sadness . I was myself painfully disturbed ; I was returning to Paris for the first time since my mother 's death ; I arrived there alone with my husband , whom I had hardly known more than six weeks , and who , up to the evening before , had not addressed a word to me but what was marked by respectful formality . Men , however well bred , do not think sufficiently of the fear which the sudden change in their tone and manners occasions to a young female as soon as she belongs to them ; they do not reflect that a youthful maiden can not in a few hours forget all her timidity and virgin scruples . ''