"Marie has a bitter grudge against you, you know. She won't like it when she knows that we have been talking together."
He contracted his heavy eyebrows as if he regretted the reconciliation at the thought of the conjugal scene it would bring upon him.
"But I have never done anything to her," stammered Jansoulet.
"Ah! but you haven't been very polite to her, you know. Think of the insult put upon her at the time of our wedding-call. Your wife sending word to us that she didn't receive former slaves! As if our friendship should not have been stronger than any prejudice. Women don't forget such things."
"But I had nothing to do with it, old fellow. You know how proud those Afchins are."
He was not proud, poor man. His expression was so piteous, so imploring at sight of his friend's frowning brow, that the baron took pity on him. The cemetery had a decidedly softening effect on the baron!
"Listen, Bernard, there's only one thing that will do any good. If you wish that we should be friends as we used to be, that these handshakes that we have exchanged should not be wasted, you must induce my wife to be reconciled to you. Without that it's of no use. When Mademoiselle Afchin shut her door in our faces, you let her do it, didn't you? It's the same with me; if Marie should say to me when I go home: 'I don't want you to be friends,' all my protestations wouldn't prevent me from throwing you overboard. For there's no friendship that amounts to anything. The best thing in the world is to have peace in your own house."
"But what am I to do, then?" queried the Nabob, in dismay.
"That's what I'm going to tell you. The baroness is at home every Saturday. Come with your wife and call on her day after to-morrow. You will find the best people in Paris at the house. Nothing will be said about the past. The ladies will talk dresses and bonnets, say what women say to each other. And then it will be all settled. We shall be friends again as in the old days; and if you're in the hole, why, we'll pull you out."
"Do you think so? It's a fact that I am in very deep," said the other, shaking his head.