Lucrète returned the strained, knowing smile. Before her husband had disappeared across the border he had had his fair share of absences for non-political reasons. "My husband never even made the pretense of business affairs. He would have considered it humiliating for a man of his position. First, as if he should have to hide anything, and second- God forbid- lest anyone get the idea he engaged in business." She wrinkled her nose. "I'm not sure which would have been worse in his mind... In a way- don't take this the wrong way, Monsieur- I do understand your father's aspirations. After all, it is only very very recently that one would want to belong to the Third Estate. Didn't we all grow up looking up to the nobility and the clergy as something better, higher than us?" She asked, searching Jacques face. It took her a moment to realize how utterly ridiculous the words sounded two years after the fall of the Bastille. She gave him a half-smile, half-grimace as the dull throbbing in her head momentarily got worse. "Well, perhaps not you, Monsieur. Perhaps you had a liberal education that prepared you for this. I am afraid we ladies are generally not so fortunate. I have had to make my way through the Revolution on my own. My father's grandest ambition was that I should marry a man with a title to bring my family the sort of respectabilty that success in silk manufacture just does not convey." She sighed. "Such a lot of good it did us, no? Ah, such a pity for everyone who planned their life without expecting a revolution to occur. So in some ways I can understand, at least on the surface as I don't know him personally, your father's upward aspirations. I will certainly not defend his absences, however, business or otherwise."