Volume I Part 41 (2/2)
”No, I went with two friends of mine--Freluchon and Edmond Didier.”
”Edmond Didier! good! now we are on the track; I understand it all now.”
”What! what track are you on?”
”I'll stake my head that Thelenie questioned you closely on the subject of Monsieur Edmond.”
”Why, yes; she asked me very often whom he was with, if his mistress was pretty----”
”That's it; and she forbade you to mention her to those gentlemen?”
”Really, it is extraordinary how you guess everything, monsieur; how you read Madame Sainte-Suzanne's thoughts!”
”It's because I've known her a long while, as I told you just now! I have been in a position to study her character, her sentiments and her mind. You asked me if I were intimately acquainted with this lady--Well, my dear monsieur--I beg pardon, but I don't know your name.”
”Chamoureau--Sigismond Chamoureau.”
”Well, my dear Monsieur Sigismond Chamoureau, I will tell you that I was once, but that I have not been for a long time.”
The agent's face brightened, and he cried:
”As you no longer are, it's just as if you had never been.”
”It isn't altogether the same thing, but I congratulate you on being so philosophical.”
”In that case, monsieur, you don't bear me a grudge for being in love with Madame Sainte-Suzanne, and I need no longer look upon you as a rival?”
”I, bear you a grudge! oh! not the least in the world! I should have had my hands very full if I had been the rival of all those whom that lady's fine eyes have bewitched!”
”She has fine eyes, hasn't she?”
”Magnificent; and they have made many victims!”
”And will make many more; she is in all the bloom of her beauty!”
”Ah! if you had seen her nine years ago! that was a different matter!”
”Great G.o.d! what was she then?--For my part, I flattered myself too soon on having made a conquest of the lady; she was very stern with me when I had the good fortune to see her at her home; she even forbade me to speak of my love. I will confess to you, monsieur, that that drove me to despair.”
”Ha! ha! poor Monsieur Chamoureau!”
”Not speak to her of love! Of what shall I speak to her, pray, that she may listen with pleasure?”
”Pardieu! speak of Edmond Didier, who is her lover! whom she loves to madness--for the moment. That is why she wanted to converse with you at the Opera ball,--Ha! ha! ha! Do you see now?”
Chamoureau turned pale; he halted in the middle of the gutter, crying:
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