Part 27 (2/2)
”Was it for that purpose too that he tried to carry his audacity so far as to kiss me?”
”Kiss you! Well, I admit that he was wrong to kiss you against your will, and I shall scold him for it. But a kiss is not a thing which should irritate you to this point!”
”You do not intend then, monsieur, to cease to receive Monsieur Dufresne in your house?”
”Most a.s.suredly, madame, I do not intend to make myself unhappy, to make myself ridiculous, and to cause people to point their fingers at me as a jealous husband, simply because somebody ventured to embrace you in jest! That would be utterly absurd! But calm yourself, I will forbid Dufresne to mention his pa.s.sion to you again!”
”What, Edouard, you laugh! You think so little of what I have told you?”
”I do what it is my duty to do, and I know how to behave.”
”Alas! you no longer love me, I see. Formerly you were more jealous.”
”One may love without being jealous; and besides--but it is getting late, and I have business that I must attend to.”
”What about that rich s.h.i.+powner for whom you gave the party?”
”He was not able to come.”
”So all your expense was useless?”
”Useless! No, indeed; I was very warmly congratulated on my party. It will do me a great deal of good in the sequel, and I am delighted that I gave it.--I must leave you, for I have not a moment of my own.”
Edouard hurried away to Dufresne. That gentleman seemed a little disturbed at sight of him, but he soon recovered himself; it was not to talk about what his wife had told him that Murville was so eager to be with him, but to talk about the lovely woman with whom he had played ecarte the night before, to find out who she was and what position she held in society; in a word, it was to dilate without reserve upon desires and hopes which he did not shrink from disclosing to his friend.
Dufresne gratified Edouard's curiosity by informing him that Madame de Geran was the widow of a general, that she was absolutely her own mistress, that she had some means but possessed the art of spending money rapidly, because she was exceedingly fond of pleasure. Dufresne took pains to add that many men paid court to the young widow, but that she received their homage with indifference, treated love as a joke and made sport of the flames she kindled, and that her conquest seemed to be difficult of accomplishment.
All that he learned added to Edouard's newly-born pa.s.sion. What joy to carry off the palm from so many rivals,--and Madame de Geran had looked at him and treated him in such a way as to justify him in forming hopes.
The fact was that she had turned his head; and Dufresne, who had no difficulty in reading the weak and fickle Murville's heart, seized the opportunity to broach the subject of his interview with Adeline, taking pains to represent the thing as a mere pleasantry, which he did not expect would be so severely reprehended.
”Yes, yes, I know,” said Edouard; ”my wife spoke to me about it this morning.”
”Ah! she told you----”
”That you were a monster, a villain, a false friend!”
”Indeed!”
”And much more too! for I warn you that she is furiously angry with you.
But never fear--I will pacify her; she will see that she took the thing in the wrong way when she learns that you mentioned it first.”
”I am truly sorry that I amused myself by--But after all, your wife is a very strange woman!”
”It's her mother, Madame Germeuil, who has stuffed her head with romantic ideas.”
<script>