“I overheard your conversation with Madame la Marquise,” said he, smiling: “she has a bitter tongue; has she not?”
“Very! how she abused the poor rogue Noce!”
“Yes, and yet he is her lover!”
“Her lover!—you astonish me: why, she seemed almost fond of her husband; the tears came in her eyes when she spoke of him.”
“She is fond of him!” said Chatran, dryly. “She loves the ground he treads on: it is precisely for that reason she favours Noce; she is never happy but when she is procuring something pour son cher bon mari. She goes to spend a week at Noce’s country-house, and writes to her husband, with a pen dipped in her blood, saying, ‘My heart is with thee!’”
“Certainly,” said I, “France is the land of enigmas; the sphynx must have been a Parisienne. And when Jupiter made man, he made two natures utterly distinct from one another. One was Human nature, and the other French nature!”
At this moment supper was announced. We all adjourned to another apartment, where to my great surprise I observed the cloth laid, the sideboard loaded, the wines ready, but nothing to eat on the table! A Madame de Savori, who was next me, noted my surprise.
“What astonishes you, Monsieur?”
“Nothing, Madame,” said I; “that is, the absence of all things.”
“What! you expected to see supper?”