Volume I Part 20 (2/2)
”True,” replied Freluchon, ”I ordered supper for ten because I thought that Chamoureau would bring a lady.”
”That's so!” cried Edmond; ”I hadn't noticed. How's this, my dear Chamoureau, didn't you make a little acquaintance at the ball? What does this mean? how, then, did you pa.s.s the time?”
Chamoureau drank a gla.s.s of chablis and replied with a triumphant smile:
”I beg pardon, messieurs, I beg pardon! if I haven't brought a lady to supper, that doesn't prove by any means that I am not so highly favored as you are by--by Cupid!”
”The deuce! do you mean it, Chamoureau?” cried Freluchon; ”you've been favored by Cupid! Come, tell us about it! When I found you in the foyer, looking, as if stupefied, at the remains of a stick of candy, I supposed that your presents had been repulsed with loss.”
”Oh! not by any means! on the contrary my candy was not once repulsed; in fact, I have given away a great deal of it during the night!”
”Really! then you have had a number of intrigues.”
”I have had nothing else all night long; I left one woman to take another, and vice versa!”
”What a Lovelace!”
”How is it, monsieur,” said the little Pompadour, ”that after making so many conquests at the ball, you haven't brought a single one to supper?
That is not very gallant for a hidalgo!”
”Pardon me, pretty marchioness,” rejoined Chamoureau, after tossing off another gla.s.s of chablis, with which he constantly watered his oysters, ”my first conquests were worth little more than a stick of candy.
Frankly, I found that they were not what I was looking for, so I dropped them, as Henri Monnier says in his _Famille Improvisee_. But the last--oh! the last----”
”She dropped you, I suppose,” said Freluchon.
”No indeed! _Diantre!_ let us not joke about her! it's a very serious affair with her. Ah! Dieu!”
”Ha! ha! what a touching sigh!”
”Well, monsieur, why didn't you bring that one to supper--the one who is responsible for that groan?”
”I promise you that I would have asked nothing better; indeed, I invited her, but she refused--she couldn't come.”
”Perhaps she was afraid of compromising herself?”
”I don't say that; and yet I can understand that in her position----”
”Ah! she's a woman with a position! Is she on the stage?”
”Well, hardly! no, no! she's a very great lady.”
”About five feet six?”
”I am not joking; she's a lady of the very best society.”
”Ha! ha! you rascal of a Chamoureau! I believe you are laughing at us.”
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